Cecilia of Red Apple Farm
by ruby gillis
Summary: Sequel to Cecilia of Ingleside. What will happen to Cecilia and her cousins as WWII begins?
1. Accentuate the Positive

"How dear Red Apple Farm is by moonlight!" said Cecilia Blythe to herself, leaning her chin on her hand, dreamily, her big dark-blue eyes looking out admiringly over the tops of the apple trees in the old orchard to the starry September sky beyond.

Anybody passing by the little red, white-shuttered house at that moment would have found something else to admire, not in the sky, but in the three very pretty girls who sat side-by-side together on the porch. There was something similar in their faces—a fineness and delicacy of feature—but beyond that, they were as different as three sweet girls can be from one another. There was Cecilia, with her night-black hair and porcelain skin; cousin Joyce Meredith, rose-beautiful, all smooth, satiny brown hair and clear gray eyes; and funny, dear Gertrude Ford with a head of reddish brown curls around her jolly, plump little freckled face.

The girls ranged down in age like a staircase: Joy was eighteen, Cecilia seventeen, and Trudy sweet sixteen and 'never been kissed.' To Trudy, this kissless state rankled in her heart, but Joy and Cecilia could have told her enough about kissing to satisfy her soul. Everyone knew that Joy and Jacob Penhallow, of Rose River, were an 'item,' and Cecilia and Sid Gardiner, of Silver Bush, had been 'going' together for nearly two years. One was scarcely seen without the other—but tonight the girls had eschewed boys entirely. Save for cousin Blythe, Joy's brother, also seventeen, who lay in the hammock watching the goldening of the sky with eyes full of dreams. But Blythe didn't _count_, Cecilia was wont to laugh, which almost always caused a darkening of that fellow's brow. Cecilia never seemed to notice it, but the adults in the family who did sighed and tsked their tongues against their teeth in exasperation over the fact that children _will_ grow up and surprise you by falling in love.

There had been a party at Red Apple Farm that evening, for the little merry band of cousins was to be separated soon enough—the first, lasting separation in their whole history. Oh, people were always going away for weekend jaunts to Avonlea, and every September there was an exodus of the older boys and girls to Redmond College. For the first time, this year, Blythe would be going to Kingsport with the others, having graduated a year early from the Glen high school. Cecilia's heart was in agony over losing him. How would she get through the golden autumn—the long winter—the bittersweet spring—without Blythe? Never before, since coming to Four Winds to live, two years before, had they been separated for such a long time. Joy was a flower and Trudy a dear, and there were many other friends to fill the gaps. But Blythe was her _heart_.

Trudy was preparing for her own going—she would be in her first year at Queens that fall. Trudy, along with cousin Merry, was the family 'brain'—though, as Grandmother Blythe was fond of saying, there were more than enough to go around in their connection. But Trudy was not content with only everyday lessons and books—she wanted to _immerse_ herself in learning. Aunt Rilla had said, laughingly, that Trudy had got all the ambition that she, Rilla, hadn't.

The party that night should have been merry and gay—and it was, in a way. Shirley Blythe had set up a tent in the old orchard, and there had been all sorts of delicacies to feast upon. Cousin Merry had brought her portable hi-fi and a stack of the latest records—Stan Kenton and Tommy Dorsey, and Ukulele Ike—and much dancing and laughter had ensued. The Chinese lanterns strung up in the trees illuminated each face, showing its lovable and tender qualities. Cecilia had found herself surrounded by everyone she loved, but…

But some partings are more final than others, and there had been a bittersweet tint to that night's good humor. Everyone's eyes had followed closely the two eldest boys in the group, and everyone had wondered when they would next see those boys again. Cousins Gilbert Ford and Walter Blythe weren't just going away to Redmond, or Queens, this year. They had 'joined up' and were going overseas. For the first time since the war in Europe had started, a year ago, it had come really close to Cecilia, in that moment when she had seen her handsome boy cousins in their uniforms, Walt in the khaki of the Land Forces, and Gilly dashing in the dress blues of the Royal Canadian Air Force. The boys had not been able to agree on which branch to join together, and so they were to be separated for the first time in their long friendship, which spanned nineteen years on the planet.

Cecilia sighed—brought down from the sunset clouds by that thought. "It's so hard to believe," she sighed. "Gilly and Walt are a _pair_. I don't think I'd worry half so much about them overseas if I only knew they were going to be _together_, to look out for and watch over each other. It's—it's unnatural to think of them being apart."

"But Dad says it's high time they went their own way," said Trudy practically. "They need room for their separate, individual identities to grow. And besides—I don't think Walt and Gil's friendship has been the same since they quarreled over Cathy Douglas last Christmas. You know they're both head over heels for her, and she'd been sparking them both—until she finally made up her mind for Gilly. Walt was _crushed_. I don't think he's forgiven Gilly—but he's as wild for Cathy as ever, though she is the one who broke his heart. Isn't that _just_ like a man to be mad at him, instead of her?"

The little group of cousins laughed, thinking of Cathy's mother, Mary Douglas, who often went around wondering similar things about the men.

"Cathy did look sweet tonight," affirmed Cecilia whose sweet heart harbored not a whit of vanity or jealousy. "Her new gown cost twenty dollars from a shop in town, but for all that—I think Nellie looked sweeter in her dress, and she made it herself. Cathy looked rather overdone beside her. I see why the boys like Cathy—she looks like Hedy Lamarr—but what I can't figure is why they don't go at least a little wild over Nellie, all the same."

"I think it is because they don't _notice _Nellie, with Cathy around," said Trudy.

"I like planning out other's peoples' love affairs," said Joy, reaching up to touch the gold locket that hung at her throat, which Jacob had given her for her birthday in May. Cecilia alone knew that a picture of that handsome gentleman reposed within, along with a small lock of his curly fair hair. "It isn't very nice when other people meddle in your _own_ romance, but it gives me a peculiar satisfaction to do it for other people. I want to _shake_ Walt—Cathy isn't the girl for him—she's too bold and he's too wishy-washy—she'd boss the life from his body. It's Nellie Douglas he should be wild about—Nellie is so sweet and gentle, nothing like her mother or sister at all. And she's _sick_ over his going—but won't admit it. Walt pays her no mind at all and she's too proud to let him see that she loves him, when he doesn't feel the same way in return."

"Cathy Douglas is a sunflower," spoke up Blythe from his hammock, "But Nellie is a daisy, fresh and sweet."

"I wish you'd 'plan out' a love affair for me, Joy," sighed Trudy, her freckled face arranged in lines of despair. "I'm so afraid I'm going to be the only girl in my class at Queens who hasn't a boy-friend."

"What about _Marshall_ Douglas?" Cecilia queried. "He's a handsome fellow—all black curls and rosy cheeks. He's—what? A year younger than me and Blythe? So just about your age, Tru."

"I danced with him twice tonight," Trudy admitted. "But he danced with _you_ three times. _And_ you danced four times with Blythe and then you went away with him down to the shore to look at the stars. I saw you—everybody did—but the question is: what would Sid Gardiner say, if _he_ could have seen it?"

"Sid likes to see me dance," Cecilia laughed. "And he likes to see me happy and with my friends. Besides, he knows he hasn't anything to fear from _Blythe_. Good heavens—of all the people!"

Blythe, in the hammock, was stung by the dismissive note in her voice and folded his long, thin arms around his body protectively. Would Cecilia, he wondered, _ever_ see him as more than a good friend and harmless cousin? Even the being the best of friends with Cecilia could not satisfy him. He wanted more from her—he wanted her love—and he felt sure he could never have it.

"Where _was_ Sid tonight?" wondered Joy. "I expected to see him here."

"He wanted to be here," Cecilia explained. "But his brother Joe is home and so he couldn't come, though he sent his best wishes to the boys."

"Has Sid thought of joining up, himself?"

"Yes," Cecilia said, with a small sigh. "But in the end it was decided that he can't. His mother isn't well, and his father needs the help on the farm. Joe is away at see most of the time and so Sid is his father's only son, by all intents and purposes, and they couldn't manage Silver Bush without him."

"I wish Jacob would be content to stay home," Joy fretted. "He talks every day about joining up—I'm afraid I won't be able to keep him from it any longer."

"Sid _wants_ to join up," Cecilia flashed. "He just _can't_. He isn't a slacker—and I wonder at you for preferring Jacob to be, Joy."

"Oh, don't _flash_ at me," Joy said, one step removed from crying. "I don't want him to go—not because I don't think Canada is worth fighting for, or Hitler a foe worth defeat. I just want him to be safe, always. You'd feel quite differently if Sid were in any danger of going, _Miss _Cecilia!"

"Don't let's spoil the mood," Blythe pleaded, sitting up in the hammock. "We have only one night left before we see our cousins off. Let's try to keep it as perfect as it has been."

The girls sat back, chastened. Cecilia wound her arm around Joy's shoulders contritely. Inside they could hear the grownups talking. Between the trees in the orchard moved the dark shapes of sweethearting couples. The world seemed very full at present, but there was an undercurrent of loneliness just below the surface.

"Gilly and Walt and Blythe and Merry all going away," Cecilia thought to herself. "All our big boys and our bright, bonny girl. There won't be—so many of us—to poke around anymore."

But before loneliness could threaten too dangerously, the group on the porch was joined by a curly-haired boy with green eyes and cheeks whipped into a frenzy by the wind—a decidedly jolly face, which wasn't made to coincide with any kind of sorrow. Marshall Douglas could never be anywhere there was sadness or complacency—or rather, those things couldn't be anywhere _he_ happened to be. He wore an air of good times like other people wore perfume. A cloud of it followed him into a room. Marshall was not a regular member of the group on the porch; he was always considered too young and had palled around with Owen Ford and Jake Blythe, always before. But those boys had gone to St. Paul's in Toronto, the year before, and Marshall had been left like a boat adrift. His own family couldn't afford to send him away to school. He did not seem to mind it terribly, although he had confided in Cecilia once that he would like to do a course in business at Kingsport, one day. But he must pay his own way, and so he worked in his father's store, and did odd jobs to make up a little extra. Marshall was only sixteen, and wouldn't be seventeen for a month, but anybody who saw him would have thought him much older, given his height and the breadth of his shoulders, and the sense of determination around his mouth.

Marshall sat down easily on the step next to Trudy, and grinned goodnaturedly at each of the girls in turn. They sometimes resented his presence, a little—Marshall's only flaw was that he was so prosy and the cousins assembled were deep lovers of poetry. But tonight, when the promise of goodbye was hanging before them, Marshall's perpetual jollity was a welcome distraction.

"Forgot my guitar when I was here, earlier," Marshall said, holding up his case. "Shall we break it out and have a song?"

"Yes, let's," said Cecilia, decidedly. Music would be just the thing to banish sad thoughts of the morrow. "Trudy, you pick the tune." It was well known that Marshall could play anything by ear, from jazzy, swingy things like 'Jukebox Saturday Night' down to old ballads like 'Rose, Rose, Rose Red.'

Trudy thought for a moment and then whispered in Marshall's ear. He nodded, and moved his large, square, capable hands over the strings of his guitar as Trudy's sweet voice took up the words.

_You've got to ac-cen-tu-ate the positive!_

_E-lim-i-nate the negative!_

_Latch on to the affirmative,_

_Don't mess with Mr. In-Between.  
_

The others took it up, it being one of their favorites:

_You've got to spread joy_

_Up to the maximum_

_Bring blues down to the minimum_

_And have faith!_

_Though pandemonium's liable to walk upon the scene. _

As their voices blended together in a stream of gold and silver, each of the little songsters felt his or her heart lifted up. Cecilia looked around at the smiling faces of those she loved best. Marshall was laughing with his eyes as he played. Blythe's hair stuck up in such a funny way—Joy's face shone with renewed humour and spirit—Trudy's little brow was screwed up in concentration as she tried to do the harmony. What _if_ there was a war in Europe? What if they must send their boys to fight in it? What if there was a Hitler? They _would '_accentuate the positive.' How could they do anything else? The war would soon be over—_der Fuhrer_ would soon reap what he had sown—and their friends would come soon home. Those blithe boys and girls did not doubt it. They lived happy, charmed lives, full of mischief and magic and love. How could anything come between them—separate them—harm them?

At this moment in their young lives, they really believed such a thing to be impossible.

________________________

A/N: I'm going back through and revising chapters, tightening them and making them longer. There might be a small amount of new content from the last draft, but this is just a revision, not a rewrite. The same stuff is going to happen, just tweaked and the awkward patches smoothed out.

The song is Ac-Cen-Tchu-Ate the Positive, music by Harold Arlen and the lyrics by Johnny Mercer. It is quoted again in the next chapter.


	2. The Same Sweet Girls

A house after a party is sometimes a desolate place, but not Red Apple Farm, which had enough light and warmth to stave off the after-effects of too much gaiety, the letdown, the loneliness that followed. Jerry Meredith, Ken Ford, Jem and Shirley Blythe—the boys of the old Rainbow Valley days, now grown men and fathers—had gone out to take down the tent and the lanterns from the trees. Inside the kitchen were their womenfolk, who had solemnly avowed that since it was the young peoples' party, they would not do a stick of work cleaning up after it. Yet—the young people had been so happy over their party's success—they would be so soon parted—that the dear little mothers could not bear to make their edict law. Let the children have their happiness, tonight—let it go on and on. These women had said goodbye, each in turn, to someone she loved, and would do the washing gladly for just a few more hours of innocence and sweet unknowingness for their children. It was a small price to pay.

The characters in this scene should look familiar—they were the same sweet girls they had always been, just a little older, and no less beautiful for the marking of the years in their faces. There was Nan Meredith—Mrs. Rev. Gerald Meredith—and Diana Wright, the famous Ingleside twins, one still smooth and velvety brown, one ruddy and freckled like her irrepressible mother. They were packing away the food from the evening, just happy to be together once more. Since Di lived in Avonlea, and Nan in Lowbridge, they were not able often to talk to their hearts' content as they were used to. Di looked at Nan as she boxed up cookies for the boys to take on the train the next day, and they had a twinnish moment of understanding without speech, and clasped hands briefly in a way that always gave Mary Lucilla Moore Ball Vance _Douglas_ a creepy feeling down the back of her neck. Some people saw nothing strange in twins, but _she_ was awfully glad she had no truck with them among her own three kids. Mary thought this—but wisely kept her opinion to herself. If the Ingleside people had never quite learned to do without Mary, Mary had at least learned when it was appropriate to hold her tongue around them. Instead of speaking, Mary turned to Una Blythe—steadfast little Una, her best friend of thirty years—and peeked down into the face of the baby she was rocking to sleep. Una smiled, too, at her littlest child—pink-and-gold Rosemary Blythe, the baby of the clan.

Faith Blythe—'young Mrs. Dr. dear'—was washing the punch bowl at the sink, and thinking of her tall lad, so like his father, with his reddish hair and his starry hazel eyes. She had had a night's worth of bitter agony just after Walt had enlisted, but since then, she had not allowed her fear or her anxiety to show outwardly. What Walt was to do upon the morrow would be hard enough without a cauterwauling mother to deal with. All the same, she knew she would not sleep tonight, and whenever she had caught Walt's face through the evening, she had not been able to stop herself from wondering if she would ever see it again. But then Faith caught sight of herself in the reflection of the window, and noticed her hair really _did_ look becoming waved in this new way, and decided to focus on that, instead. It was Faith's way—finding the bright spot in a sea of dim. It had gotten her through many long nights and hard times before.

Rilla Ford, the famous journalist's wife, finished drying the glasses and stepped to the back door, looking across the orchard to the dark shapes moving between the trees. Rilla, the erstwhile baby of the Blythe family, had never quite been able to stop thinking of herself as young, and certainly did not believe, in her heart of hearts, that she should be the mother of a man of nineteen—a lieutenant in the Air Force. She often had a certain disbelief about Gilly's leaving—and other times it came over her with a startling clarity.

"I hope Little Gilly doesn't stay out too late tonight," she fretted. "I want him to get a good night's sleep and be rested to meet the train. Lord knows he won't get much sleep at the training camp. He should sleep while he's able."

"Lord knows he won't get the chance to do much kissing at the training camp, either," said Faith, with her old ringing laugh. "And so we learn which Gilbert Ford prizes more: sleep, or the fair Cathy Douglas?"

"Cathy's been going around all day with a furtive, stricken look on her face," proclaimed Mary Vance. "She thinks we've all no idea that she's in the middle of a romance—when it's as obvious as the nose on her face. And Nellie paces the floor—she's worried about your Walt, Faith. I told her to just _go_ to him and tell him she loves him, but she won't. How a child of mine got so little natural gumption is something I'll never be able to understand."

"Oh, Mary," breathed Una, shy to the core, "It's not a question of gumption. Nellie has more pluck than the rest of our girls put together. It was Nellie who organized the Junior Red Cross way back last year before any of the boys even dreamed of going. And she didn't get any of the credit but she does more hard work than any of the girls in the Glen. She's heaps of spirit, and determination. She only feels things so deeply—she's sensitive—like me, I suppose. She _couldn't_ go to Walt and risk having her heart trampled on. She would never get over the pain of it."

"Well—maybe," said Mary, folding her hands over her ample stomach. She had never been known to disagree with Una over anything—anything _lasting_—yet.

"I'm disappointed in my boy over this whole rigmarole," said Faith, severely. "He has inherited Jem's one flaw—stubbornness. Once he has his mind set on something—some_one_—it will take a host of heavenly angels to change it. I feel for Nellie—I really do. I hate to see her looking so lost and knowing my son is the cause of it."

"She had enough gumption, at least, to ask Walt to dance with her," spoke up Di, from her place by the table. "And I saw them go off into the orchard together a while ago—not hand in hand like the others—but looking companionable, for all that. When I saw Nellie's face, though, it reminded me of—of old Dog Monday, so haunted and _patient_. Oh, I _am_ glad my Teddy has his heart set on music—for now. I couldn't bear knowing he was the cause of a broken heart. These little romances springing up around us are so exasperating—I feel so powerless to intervene and it drives me crazy."

"Mother Anne _glories_ in our 'little romances,'" said Faith, dimpling. "She and I have long gossips about them every night, when we sit out on the verandah after supper. With so many big boys and girls in our connection—why, it's better than any radio serial could be. We've married each of our 'babies' off ten times over. We've just about made up our minds that your Teddy is going to be the bachelor of the group, Diana. It is a shame, though—he is so strong and darkly handsome."

"Teddy might be safe—but I noticed Bertha went off into the orchard with Ned Flagg," said Nan, slyly, to her twin.

Di tossed her hair. She could be as proud as her proud sister, when occasion merited it. "They are only talking about music," she said. "Ned went to the conservatory in Boston, you know, for violin. It has been something of a dream of Bertha's, to go herself, since she began corresponding with that American boy, Jordan Gray, last year. Anyway, Nan—everybody knows that Joy and Jacob Penhallow are as good as engaged. And Blythe's wild over Cecilia."

"And Cecilia is wild over Sid Gardiner," sighed Una, cuddling baby Rosemary closer to her breast. She was not quite accustomed to having her daughter—dear, black-haired, and still as kissable as a baby—being kissed by a tall, handsome man, and on a regular basis, too. Deep down, Una had to admit that she hoped the relationship with Sid might fail. Oh—she did not want Cecilia to get her heart broken—no, never that. Only—they might grow apart, somehow. And then Cecilia could be with Blythe, who was so gentle, and dreamy, and reminded Una so of his Uncle Walter. If Cecilia and Blythe were to fall in love, Una felt it would make up for certain little dreams of her own that had been buried in the blood-stained soil of Courcelette. She loved Shirley—and her girls—but there was always that might-have-been that flitted in and out of her soul like a white moth.

"We're getting to be a good lot of gossips," laughed Rilla, but the sound was cut short by a sob that crept up into her voice. She covered her face with her hands. When she lifted it, she looked very tired.

"Oh, Faith," she said brokenly. "How are we going to bear it, tomorrow?"

Faith said quietly, "We will have to bear it as best we can."

"I keep thinking of Gilly as a baby," Rilla confessed. "He was so sweet and dimpled, you know. The first baby of the next generation. The first of his folk to heed the Piper's call. And perhaps—the first—to be piped West, because of it."

"Do not think like that," said Di firmly, coming to wind an arm around her sister's shoulders.

"I can't help it," Rilla said plaintively. "I think of Gilly and I think that I _need_ more time—he is gone from me so quickly—I fear I didn't teach him, have time to teach him, all the things he needs to know. If I only could have known there would be another war, I could have braced myself for it, and prepared better. But we thought the last war would be the war to end all wars—and here it is, 'the hour come round' again. I sent my sweetheart—I sent my brothers, and one of them never came back to me. Jims—little war-baby Jims—joined up last year. I kissed him off at the station. But it was not enough. Now I must send my son—and he might never come back to me, either. Oh, life is a circle—birth, life, death—do it over again. It seems so—so futile."

"Birth, life, death—and _rebirth_," said Nan, who had learned the trick of unshakeable faith in twenty years as a minister's wife. "It is a terrible thing to lose a child, of course—but you don't really lose him, for all that. You can't, ever, even if you _do_."

Nan's eyes looked faraway as she said it, and they knew she was thinking of her baby Elaine, who lay in the graveyard over-harbor. Elaine Meredith had lived for only one sweet day and had been dead for almost twenty years—would be a woman of nineteen, now, if she had lived. Una was thinking of her little Susan—how her tender spirit would have hated such a thing as war. She thanked God that Rosemary was still a baby, and that these war years might be a distant dream by the time she grew up. She prayed feverishly that Cecilia's girlhood would not be killed, struck dead by sorrow, the same way her own had.

Outside, they suddenly heard music, and the children singing.

_To illustrate _

_My last remark: _

_Jonah and the whale, Noah and the Ark. _

_What did they do? Just when everything looked so dark?_

_Man, they said _

_You better ac-cent-u-ate the positive…_

"How's that for a lesson?" asked Faith, and they all laughed, a little self-consciously. But Faith's golden-brown eyes flashed with spirit. "We forgot, for a minute—that old lesson we should have learned long ago. Jonah knew it, and Noah, too: The Lord is our light and our salvation; of whom, or what, should we be afraid?"

"And we forgot to keep faith," said Una softly.

"Well," said Rilla, her own composure restored with some effort. "We _are_ a singing family, aren't we? Trudy has a pretty voice, and I'm glad she's going to be getting proper music lessons this fall. Though your Bertha can sing like an angel, Di. She's far better than the rest of us put together. She 'blew my socks off,' as Owen would say, when she sang that Mozart for us after supper last night."

"I am very pleased with her myself," Di gloated, with a small smile at the thought of her pretty, talented daughter.

The women put their cares away to one side and tried to finish up their chores without them. They laughed and chattered and teased each other and gossiped with ferocity—doing their best to pretend that tonight was like any other night and not the beginning of what might turn out to be a second Armageddon. Outside, on the porch, Marshall Douglas strummed the strings of his guitar and sang the opening words of a bittersweet song that had played on the radio for over a year, that each of the women had listened to a hundred times before, but never _really_ heard until that night.

_I'll be seeing you_

_In all the old familiar places_

_That this heart of mine embraces_

_All day through…_

It would linger with them all the rest of their lives. Whenever Faith Meredith thought back to this night; when Rilla Blythe walked the floor of her little house of dreams in restless agony; when Una Blythe was called to give someone of her own though she had no sons to go. Whenever any of them thought of how quickly and suddenly a world that felt familiar could be turned up on its end, and shaken like a storm-tossed soul.

_______________________

A/N: The song is I'll Be Seeing You. Its music was written by Sammy Fain, the lyrics by Irving Kahal.


	3. The First Leaving

It was decided that only the immediate families of the two soldiers would accompany them to the depot the next morning—if the entire clan had gone, the Glen station would have been overflowing with Blythes and Merediths and Fords and Wrights to the extent that nobody, not even any of the other passengers, could have fit in. Besides, despite their broad shoulders encased in such magnificent militarial fabric, both Gilly and Walt had a secret, childish terror at anything that reeked of 'fuss.' So only the Ingleside people, and the House of Dreams people, went, though as Di Wright had said, nobody had moral authority over Mary Vance, so likely she would be there with her brood, too.

Cecilia was the only other person asked to come along, for the purpose of providing moral support for Trudy. She had gone to bed late, but she woke early the next day, and leapt out of bed and went to dress in her nicest blue dress. She wanted to make an effort to look especially nice—she wanted her boys to have the best looking family of all waving them off. She wanted them to remember what they were fighting for—and what they had to come back to. She rolled her hair and pulled on her new pair of silk stockings, and even dabbed a bit of lipstick on her heart-shaped mouth. Of course she was sad that Gilly and Walt were going—but the glamour of the situation was not entirely lost upon her. It _was_ romantic—no matter what else it might be—she saw Greer Garson, leaning out the train window and calling to her lover, in _Goodbye Mr. Chips_. Suppose Gilly should surprise everyone and propose to _his_ Cathy? Cecilia grinned as she tripped downstairs. Suppose Nellie should lose her head and her inhibitions and run after the train like Chipping, screaming to Walt that she loved him, after all? Oh—it would be _magnificent_. It would be something for the _ages_.

"You look beautiful," said Shirley to his eldest daughter as she arranged her pert, Florentine hat on top of her shining curls.

"Thank you kindly, Daddy dearest," laughed Cecilia. "You look positively squiffy yourself." Satisfied with the angle of her bonnet, she stepped back from the glass and assumed her most pleading expression. "May I borrow the car if I promise to drive one mile an hour all the way to the train station and back? Uncle Jem and Uncle Ken are both driving—but I thought I'd take Trudy out for a soda after the boys are gone. She—won't—be wanting to go right home, I'm thinking."

Shirley handed his girl the keys, and stood with Una and the baby in the doorway, watching her back down the drive.

"Thank God we have no sons to send," he said, kissing baby Rosemary's wee, chubby hand. "I wouldn't be Jem or Ken today for the world."

"But any other day, you would?" asked Una, in what would have passed, in someone less sweet, for sauciness.

Shirley looked at his wife and child, and at the light flooding through the windows of their home together.

"No," he said, leaning down to kiss her hair. "Nor any other day, either."

________________________

The Glen station was hot and crowded, and nothing like a movie after all. The war had been on a year—the sight of soldiers being seen off to war had lost its novelty, and people seemed more interested in their own goings and comings than in anybody else's. The Blythe and Ford families stood pressed to one side of the depot, waiting for their boys' trains to be called. They would be leaving on separate trains, and would be going toward separate lives. They already seemed to be pulling away from each other—Walt stood with his arm around his mother, talking to Grandfather Blythe, and Gilly had taken up in his arms a sobbing Cathy Douglas, whose face, despite its tear-stains, glowed with pride. She held up her hand and patted that rosy face she loved, and on her hand winked the sparkle of a tiny diamond ring. Cecilia drew in a breath, sharply. So—Gilly had proposed last night—and Cathy had accepted! She supposed that was what accounted for Walt's lowered brow, but it was thrilling—thrilling—the first engagement in their generation.

Trudy clung fast and hard to Cecilia's hand. She had rolled her hair clumsily, and her freckles stood out starkly on her pale face. "How much time do we have?" she asked, and just as she said it, both trains were announced. Trudy's face fell, and the boys turned to make their final goodbyes.

Cecilia saw that Aunt Rilla had taken Gil's face in her hands one last time—her eyes were closed—there was a small smile on her face as she remembered so many sweet things. His babyhood in the House of Dreams—his dear, freckled little face breaking into its first smile—the first time he had ever lifted his arms up and said, in a little, lisping voice, 'Mama!'

Rilla looked up at him and in that moment, remembered a long-ago vow that she had made, in another lifetime, during another war, to be a heroine. She smiled at her baby—her first little baby—and she smiled like she meant it. Anne Blythe saw her daughter smile that way and she, too, remembered the slim, heroic Rilla of the old Ingleside days.

"Goodbye," Rilla said to her son, and on her lips in that moment it was not a rebuke for his going, but a promise that they should meet again. Owen shook his brother's hand, and said,

"So long, Gil—and remember, I'll be along soon to help you beat those Jerries."

But even at that Rilla did not let her smile falter or slip. She only drew Owen nearer to her, so that her arms would not feel so empty.

Walter was getting the same treatment from Aunt Faith. "I've arranged for Jake to bring you mayflowers next year, Mother," he told her confidentially, and Faith's heart beat painfully in her chest. Where would this darling, long-limbed, dark-haired son of her be next year? Would he be home, or would he be "somewhere in France"?

Cecilia found herself swept up in the shuffle. There was Gil dropping a kiss on her cheek—"Goodbye, Cee, and don't be climbing any more trees while I'm gone!"—and here was Walt. He shook her hand, and asked, cheerfully, "Any last words?"

"Go and give Nellie Douglas a kiss," was Cecilia's low, earnest request.

Walter stared at her quizzically. He did not want to kiss Nellie. Cathy Douglas had just kissed him—"for old times' sake, for my dear _friend_ Walt." How it had hurt him, to hear her say that so pointedly! But she had to say it—she was wearing Gilbert's ring. Jealousy and disappointment rankled in his soul, but still he did not want anyone else to kiss his lips, and spoil what Catharine had left there. Only Cecilia's eyes urged him to do as she bade. "You'll regret it if you don't."

Gilbert was tossing little Hannah up into the air as Walt made his way through the crowd to where Nellie was standing, on the fringes of things, as she always seems to be. She looked up at him with her strange, white eyes, and her slender form trembled in its pale green silk dress like a quivering aspen. Everything about her was pale—her hair, her lips, her face, her eyes—all except two dots of color that bloomed in her cheeks as Walter neared her. He thought longingly of Cathy in her red dress—what a siren that girl was!—and then bent his head to drop a dutiful kiss on Nellie's lips.

But at the last moment Nellie turned her face away so that Walt's lips touched the air by her cheek. She did not want his kiss if it was to be given grudgingly—even at the risk of never getting the chance to kiss him again. Instead she only squeezed Walter's hand very tight.

"Take care of yourself," she said plainly and simply to him. "Be sure to come back in one piece."

There was such feeling behind her words that Walter, even with Cathy's kiss still burning on his lips, suddenly felt disappointed that Nellie had not let him kiss her, and didn't know why. He got onto the train feeling more confused than ever. Many times over the next five years, while he huddled on the beach at Dieppe, bivouacked in the same Flanders Fields his countrymen had once watered with their blood, in the long days that followed the liberation of The Schedlt, Walter Blythe would think about what it might have been like had Nellie Douglas turned her face and met his lips with her own.

The conductor called for all aboard for the final time, and the family drew together, gathering strength from one another. Aunt Rilla looked for a moment like she might faint, but then jumped up and down and waved her little green netted hat like a schoolgirl as Gil waved out the window. Aunt Faith clung to Merry with one hand and Uncle Jem with the other.

Merry's eyes blazed with pride. "Goodbye, Walt!" she cried to him. And then, to the others, "Oh, isn't it _good_ to have such a brave brother!"

They waved like crazy and shouted "Hurrah!" and "God Bless!" as the train pulled out from the station. Hannah and little Nancy were holding hands and singing _The Maple Leaf Forever_. Jake and Owen and Marshall Douglas took it up, raucously. Mary Vance stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled long and loud and Grandfather Meredith bowed his head in a prayer. "Goodbye!" Cecilia called, shouting so that her voice rasped in her throat. "Goodbye—dear boys—goodbye! Be safe! Goodbye!"

And then suddenly the train was gone and it was like all the air had gone out of the room. Oh, what terrible finality, the whistling blowing and sounding so far off already—they were gone—how horrid, it was nothing like a movie at all. The boys, their dear brave boys, were _gone_ and who knew when they would be coming back?

Trudy was crying. "When will they come back, Cecilia? When? When?" Cecilia took her by the hand as if she were only as old as one of the little Annes, and led her from the station. She took Trudy for the promised soda, but it did little to cheer either of their spirits, though Cecilia spent all her change on the juke-box, picking songs that she thought might cheer Trudy up. Only their forced gaiety seemed just ghastly, now.

It was a very tired, heart-weary girl who met Sid Gardiner in the orchard that evening. Sid saw the dark furrows under her eyes, and enfolded his girl in his arms without a word.

"Oh, Sid," said Cecilia, raising her face to his, "How awful it was! I didn't expect it. I listen to Lorme Greene every night with Mother and Dad—I pore over the maps of Europe and the South Seas like everybody else—but this war wasn't real to me until today. When Gilly and Walt had finally gone, all I could think was of the old Bible verse: 'Look ye, thou house is left unto thee desolate.'"

She laid her shining head on his shoulder, and Sid stroked her back, but he found her a very poor sweetheart that night. After he had gone away Cecilia fled to Rainbow Valley. It was just the sunset hour that people called 'the gloaming' and she knew what—who—she would find there.

Cecilia found Blythe under the White Lady, where she had known he would be waiting. He stood and opened his arms to her, and she rushed in to his comforting embrace.


	4. Cecilia Writes

Cecilia had a present from Aunt Rilla to coincide with the start of her last year at the Glen high school: a sweet little book, covered in a floral print, with blank, gilt-edged pages inside upon which she might try to untangle her thoughts. Rilla was very grateful to Cecilia, for keeping Trudy out of the doldrums, and she thought, too, of her own diary of the Great War days, and that it might be a comfort for her niece to have one of her own. Cecilia loved her present, and within a few weeks of having it in her possession, had filled at least a quarter of the pages with her copperplate scrawl.

"Life is nothing but partings lately," she wrote one cool afternoon in the orchard, still wearing the kilt and blouse she had worn to school that day. Her little face was thin and pale from strain, but there was a humorous quirk to her mouth that belied a little self-awareness, and self-mockery, over the melodramatic words she had just penned.

"Trudy went off to Queens last week. She cried bucketsful of tears, but I couldn't find it in my heart to be sad for her or myself. I think school is the best place for her now. She will make new friends, and be absorbed in her new classes, and she won't have so much time to dwell on unhappy things. I spent the night at the House of Dreams before she went, and we had such fun going through the pretty dresses in her trunks. She has so many nice new things—the Fords are the most well-off of any of us, and Aunt Rilla has the _best_ fashion sense. We put on a record—Irving Berling singing 'Putting on the Ritz'—and made Trudy give us a fashion show. Uncle Ken snapped pictures with and sang along to the words, "Tips her hat just like an English chappie…"

And we all joined in, laughing, on the next line: "She's a lady with a wealthy pappy—very snappy!"

Uncle Ken then attempted a very Astaire-like softshoe that sent him sprawling over the back of the sofa. "Oh, Rilla, Rilla, to survive the Huns only to be killed by the furniture!" he cried as he went down. We all cried from laughing and for a while we forgot that Gilly is gone, and Walt, too, and Trudy went away with a good taste of home in her mouth, I think.

So it wasn't terribly hard to see her go—but to send Blythe off the very next day was agony. Before he left Blythe came for one last walk in the orchard, and it was—it was—well. I don't know exactly what it was.

It started off nicely enough. The little apples are almost ready to be picked, and I promised to send Blythe a bushel when they are in. He recited me the last stanza of his latest poem—he took my suggestion and didn't try to force the rhyme, and it came out perfectly, if I do say so myself.

"No one can write like you, Blythe," I said. "You are one in a million—brains and 'beauty'—all the girls at Redmond will be wild for you."

Blythe turned to me with that weird look in his eyes—that silvery look—that always means he is about to tell me something very important. It reminds me how in old testimonies, people are being 'laid on' to do this and that. I felt in that moment that Blythe was 'laid on' to speak.

"There is only one girl who I care about," he said. "One girl I'd want to be wild for me. Do you know who she is, Cecilia?"

I had a weird feeling—I remembered the poem Blythe wrote me last year for my sixteenth birthday—the 'longshore lass'—and I had the queerest feeling Blythe was going to tell me he was in love with me! _Me_! He looked at me—we were facing each other under the oldest tree in the orchard—and as suddenly as I'd known he was going to speak, I saw that he had decided not to.

"Who is it?" I asked, prompting him.

"I'm in love Cathy Douglas, of course," he said lightly, "Like everybody else."

Which was his way of being facetious and saying that he didn't feel like telling me the truth, after all.

It was a sorry note to end on. I was chapped because he hadn't trusted me to tell his secret to. And it was worse when we got back to the house, because Sid had come over for our movie date and was waiting for me. He and Blythe were very stiff and cold to one another—until Marshall showed up with those music books he wanted me to send to cousin Bertha. _He_ seemed to sense the coldness in that way he does, and dived right in, and things had thawed a bit by the time Blythe took his leave. But as I was waving goodbye to him, Sid came up and put his arm protectively around my shoulders—no, not _protectively_—I don't need protecting—_possessively. _Blythe has never liked Sid—he thinks Sid is ordinary—and Sid thinks Blythe is pompous. And I think they are both jealous—Sid because he's doesn't understand the kind of friendship that Blythe and I have, and Blythe because he is no good at playing second fiddle. When Blythe loves something or someone, he wants to be loved best in return.

Speaking of Marshall Douglas, we have taken to eating our lunch together everyday out under the maples in the schoolyard. I am sorry to say it, because it sounds so _lonely_, but he is my only real friend still in school, since Joy and Cathy and Nellie have graduated and Blythe and Trudy have gone. What a funny chap he is! I never noticed it before. He has such an interesting take on things, and he is ferocious in an argument. I don't generally like overly prosy people, but I find these days, when poetical thoughts and wayward imaginings can bring pain or nostalgia, that a little prosiness is in order. And Marshall proved himself to me the other day—he proved that he is a person of honor and character—in short, he defended Sid for me.

Here is what happened: some boys in the junior class were listing the fellows who they thought should have joined up but haven't yet. Sid is an easy target and they know he's still at home. He is the star football player at Bay Shore, our biggest rival, and so everybody knows who he is. Marshall and I had just finished lunch and were walking to the library when we heard horrid George Drew say to Sam Crawford that there goes Sid Gardiner's girl—meaning me—and how he always thought a Blythe would be too proud to go around with a _slacker_. I stopped cold in my tracks—a killing anger swept over me—and then Sam Crawford remarked, _just_ as casually as George had spoken, that he didn't know that I was Sid Gardiner's girl—he thought everyone knew that Sid 'goes around' with May Binnie. The way he said 'goes around' was so perfectly insinuating of such a lot of awful things. I turned—my eyes were flashing—but before I could speak Marshall had launched himself at George and pushed him right down onto the ground. George fell with a thud and Marshall leapt upon him and straddled him, and hit him squarely in the mouth.

George opened his mouth and blood simply _poured_ from between his teeth. It was awful—and violent—but _I didn't care_. George is always saying something nasty and picking on people who are smaller than him and I felt _glad_ he'd got his comeuppance for once.

"Who else?" asked Marshall, looking pointedly at Sam Crawford. His green eyes snapped. When no one spoke, Marshall reached down and hauled George Drew up from his place on the ground.

"Don't let me ever hear you speak a work against Sid Gardiner again," he said, shoving his handkerchief in George's face. George pressed it against his lip. "Sid is his father's only son—he might want to go, for all you know—but he can't. He couldn't be as big a coward as you if he skipped fighting in a thousand wars, George Drew. Calling a man names behind his back!"

"I'll show you!" George shouted, lunging for him, but before he could try the fight was broken up and Marshall was hauled away to the principal's office. I heard later he'd gotten detention for a week, starting that day, and I waited for him in the schoolyard, since I felt responsible for him being in the fight in the first place. Marshall came out and looked surprised to see me there, but grinned, and shook out the cramps in his hand. He'd been writing lines for an hour.

"Thank you for doing that," I said to him.

"What are friends for?" he said back.

Over in England, the battle of Britain has begun—the Blitz—German bombers have shelled London for ten consecutive nights and show no signs of stopping. I listen to the war news hungrily, but it feels like I'm listening to Orson Welles's _War of the Worlds_—like something that is happening on another planet. I must be a selfish person—despite that horror and agony the world is still a beautiful place to me—because I, Cecilia Blythe, have a new friend. Oh, I'm part ashamed of myself—and part forgiving, because I know that the race of Joseph gets scarcer and scarcer as the years go by. To find a kindred spirit in this troubled world _must_ be a victory—of a sort—against the powers of evil.

12 October 1940

Over in London tonight the Blitz still goes on—and on—and on. Lorme Greene, the "Voice of Doom," as some people are starting to call him because all the war news is so dire—gives us nightly reports via radio of the bravery of the British people. They refuse to give in to Hitler's _Luftwaffe_—they go about their business as best they can—at night they walk in an orderly fashion to the shelters where they wait out the kind of horror I can only imagine. I want to _laugh_ at Hitler when I hear such stories. He thought he would cause a pandemonium and get them to give in, but the Brits are 'accentuating the positive' to an heroic degree. If there was anybody who doubted whether Hitler was a monster after what he did to poor Poland, they can't doubt it after seeing what he has done to the sweet mother country.

"I'd like to blitz _him_," I heard Mother say to Mary Vance, and it was shock, because Mother never says anything like that. But the Nazis are proving themselves to be so barbaric that the old rules of decorum can't apply to them.

But they are 'killing poor London,' as Blythe wrote dejectedly to me. Blythe has always been in love with the magical old place and has always wanted to go there. He feels it keenly, when he sees pictures of St. Paul's cathedral standing out against the firestorm, the British museum smoking in ruins, the Houses of Parliament and St. James Palace damaged—beyond repair? We will not know until the bombers let up—and they do not seem inclined to let up any time soon. Oh, how _can_ the Brits bear it?—but they are made of stronger stuff than I am. If I saw Red Apple Farm ruined I would die of sorrow, no matter how many times Churchill told me I must keep a stiff upper lip.

On top of what is happening in Europe, the Japanese are behaving abominably in the South Pacific, antagonizing China and little French Indochina. And they have just signed a military alliance with Germany and Italy, which cannot bode well.

If I am going to 'accentuate the positive' as I told myself I would last month, then I must admit that if there is one good thing about the war, it is that I am finally learning my geography, which has been for me as geometry was for Grandmother Blythe. I couldn't have told Malaya from Singapore from the Philippines a month ago—and now I can, nicely, and tell you the military importance of each, and what it will mean if it is taken by Japan. Dad and I have tacked a large map up on the study wall and spend hours pouring over it each night. It reminds of how, when I was a little girl, I'd spin the globe, and wherever my finger landed was where I would live, someday. But now it feels like some greater hand is doing the spinning—this place shall be taken; this shall fall; this, too.

28 October 1940

Italy invaded Greece today, and that was terrible enough, but far more terribly for my small, selfish little heart was that fact that also today, Sid and I had our first quarrel. I am worried for my development, that the one thing should mean more to me than the other, but it was an _awful_ quarrel and I am sorry to say that I am the one who started it. At least—I _may_ have started it—but if Sid had not acted the way he did, I wouldn't have _needed_ to start anything. So maybe he is to blame. The whole thing is jumbled up in my head—I don't think I'll ever get it straight.

Today I spent the afternoon working on a paper for history class on the importance of religion in Elizabethan England. On a sidenote, it seems so strange to be concerned with times remote when the times we live in are so troubled. I worked for hours and finally when my mind was whirling and teeming, decided that a little rest and relaxation would be in order. I hopped in Dad's car and drove to Silver Bush—ran up the lane—and came face to face with a skinny, hungry-looking girl with thin, overplucked eyebrows and mocking, dancing eyes, coming _down_ the lane, from the house.

"Well, hello, Ce_cilia_," said May Binnie, as though she and I are the best of friends, when really we have only met a handful of times and have never gotten along as well as one might think from her greeting. May is always throwing herself at Sid, and the fact that Sid is dating _me_ seems to have no effect on her efforts. But the Binnies have no sense of propriety—if they want something they go after it, proper social customs and politenesses be _darned_. I will _not_ write the other word, no matter how May makes me feel!

"Hello, May," I said, nice as pie, and ran past her into the house, even though it was the last possible place I wanted to be. But if I'd turned tail and fled back to my car, she would have _known_ she'd run me off, and I wouldn't give her that satisfaction for the world. I sat down in the kitchen with Judy Plum and Pat, and had a very nice chat with the both of them, but whenever Sid tried to talk to me, I cut him dead. It was like he didn't _exist_ to me at all.

Finally, after a proper interval, I took my leave, and Sid followed me out.

"What is the meaning of this, girl?" he asked, catching me by the arm and pulling me around to face him. He looked so angry that I felt myself wilt under his gaze—but then I remembered the cunning little look on May's face, and how her sweater was cut so low, and I flared back up again.

"What is the meaning of _you_ having May Binnie, here?" I spit. "I know she didn't come to see Pat—you needn't try that old lie on me. I know she came to see you—admit it—admit it."

"She did come to see me," said Sid, darkly. "But I didn't want her to come, so I can't see how I should be blamed for her being here."

"Of course you wouldn't," I said, as cuttingly and cruelly as I could. "Why should you care if she comes? You don't care a whit if people are saying that you—and she—that I'm a _fool_, who's being two-timed and doesn't even _know_ it. Well—I do know, now. And I shan't come here again. And I _shan't_ wish to see you at Red Apple Farm, either!"

I meant to make a triumphal exit by slamming into my car and peeling out of the driveway, but I'd left my keys on the kitchen table, and so I had to slink back inside to retrieve them. It was _ very_ dissatisfying. But I suppose it is for the best, because Dad says I should never drive if I am angry, or distracted, as I might get into an accident. I calmed down the merest trifle as I went.

Inside, Sid's sister Pat reached for my arm. "Don't go away mad," she begged me. "Give him another chance. Sid doesn't believe that May could ever come between you—that's why he isn't worried—and that should count for something, shouldn't it?"

"It counts for something," I told her. "But it doesn't count for _enough_. I'm sorry, Pat."

"Oh, I'm sorry, too," she said, and she really did look it.

I drove home—at a reasonable rate—and waited all evening for the phone to ring. It hasn't—I don't think it will. I kept staring at it—waiting for Sid to call—finally I had to take myself outside to the orchard, where I cried and cried. Our relationship was so beautiful, for so long, and now it is ruined. Even if we patch things up, things will never be as sweet and perfect as they were before. There will always be this blemish on things, a little spot on all our happiness. Oh—I wish Binnies had never been invented!"


	5. Poppies and Orchids

In November Walt and Gilly shipped out to points unknown. The family surmised that Gilbert would be going to a base in England, and Walt, to join the infantry in France, but wouldn't be sure until the boys got were they were going and wrote. If they were even able to write. Other families with boys overseas had gotten many letters that were rendered nearly unintelligible from the censors. There were some people who did not even know what _continent_ their boys were on. It was a new sensation, to these careful, doting parents who had always put their children first in everything. To not know where your little boy was at night—if he was well and warm and safe—!

Cecilia had not heard from Sid since that fateful day at Silver Bush. The days slipped into weeks, and the telephone did not ring, and she gradually stopped expecting it would. There was a little ache in her chest nearly all the time, but she dared not complain of it when things were so bad in Europe. England was still being 'blitzed' and the Germans were cutting a wide swath through Romania. Everybody knew the little country would not be able to defend itself for long, and would have to join to the Axis or be killed. Cecilia listened to the account of the Romanian death throes on the radio and then turned it off, and threw herself into work planning for the Armistice Day dance.

The dance was Nellie's brainchild, but as usual, she was too modest to take the credit for the idea. Still, however it had been decided, the plan was an excellent one. They would hold the dance at the Four Winds light, which had recently been blacked out, but was really the only place big enough to hold so many people. They had gotten a band from Lowbridge to agree to donate their services—the bandleader's son was in khaki—and Miller Douglas was catering the event for free from his store. They billed the event as the 'dance of the season' and sold tickets, and everybody who was anybody planned on being there. They would hold auctions to raise funds, and promised the chance to win a kiss from Cathy Douglas, who had gotten permission from Gilly to offer such a prize. _Anything for the war effort_, he'd written. _Just don't give them the special brand I'm used to, honey-darling._ In addition, people could bid on a week's loan of Dr. Jem Blythe's new Cadillac Custom convertible; an autographed copy of Kenneth Ford's latest novel; tickets to the premier of Sara Stanley King's new movie in Charlottetown; and a homemade pie a week from Una Blythe for a year—or as long as rationing would allow.

Cecilia and the other Junior Reds spent a day decorating the light with red and white bunting and cut-out maple leaves, winding fairy lights around the trees and banisters. When everything was arranged the way Cecilia wanted it, she ran home with only enough time to dress before she had to be back to set up the refreshments. Una came in as Cecilia was arranging tissue paper poppies behind her ears. The contrast of the red against the snapping black of Cecilia's hair was beautiful to behold and Una smiled in pleasure over her beautiful girl. True—Cecilia's beauty was not flashy like Cathy Douglas' or showy like Joyce's, but there was something witchy and alluring in her that could not be found in those other girls. _I am beautiful_, their looks declared, but Cecilia's said, _Come closer—and find out for yourself_.

But if Cecilia's face and hair were arranged in perfect lines, Una laughed at the dress her daughter was wearing. A decidedly old-fashioned, beaded blue crepe that fell nearly to her pretty ankles, filmy blue silk stockings, and smart, steel-buckled little shoes. "Where did you _get_ such a costume, darling?"

Cecilia laughed. "I borrowed it from Aunt Rilla, Mother. Our dance tonight is in honor of Armistice day—so we thought we'd make a theme of it, and pretend to be from the _first_ Armistice day and dress accordingly. We have so many grownups coming, we thought they'd get a kick out of it. We're going to play old-timey music—songs from the first war. Oh, it's going to be positively _swell—_or should I say, 'the bee's knees?'"

"Well, your father and I will be glad to have the waltzes. We'd never be able to manage that jitterbug that comes so naturally to you. Is Sid—picking you up—here?" Una asked the last a little shyly. She was not entirely sure what had happened between Cecilia and Sid—she knew something had—but she decided it would be best to pretend nothing _had_ happened until Cecilia brought it up herself.

"I'm not going to the dance with anybody," Cecilia said, avoiding the question. "I asked Blythe to escort me but he couldn't get home for the weekend. So I'm on wallflower duty tonight. Perhaps I'll see Sid there, though."

Her heart pounded in her throat at the very thought. She had not seen him since that terrible day when they had quarreled. But she knew he _would_ be in attendance tonight—Pat Gardiner had phoned and ordered a ticket for herself and her brother.

"I miss him," Cecilia admitted to herself, as she smoothed her curls one last time and fixed them in place with pins. "I wouldn't mind making up our feud—but I'm too shy and scared of speaking first. Suppose he hasn't forgiven _me_?"

At just this moment there was a knock on the door and Cecilia ran down, expecting to see Nellie, who was giving her a ride back to the light. Instead she found a delivery boy with a box with her name on it—she opened it and found a lovely corsage of orchids, which she exclaimed over. There was no doubt in her mind that they came from Sid. He knew she loved orchids—_loved_ their perfume and mystery. Oh, he _did_ forgive her—this was his way of saying so. She lifted the flowers up and pinned them to her shoulder, with eyes so full of grateful tears that she quite overlooked the little card that had been nestled in among the petals. _To Cecilia, with love from Blythe, who wishes he could be with you in person tonight_.

The slip of paper slid in a draft from the closing of the door under the sofa and out of sight and Cecilia whirled out to meet Nellie none-the-wiser, but with a heart full of hopes.

_______________________

The dance was a rip-roaring success. Cecilia tapped her foot in time with the band's version of _In the Mood _and watched the couples of all ages whirling around the floor. Billy Crawford flipped Alice Elliott high into the air and caught her again; Jem Blythe was twirling his Faith around and around; Marshall was dancing with little Hannah Ford, who stood on the tops of his shoes. He caught Cecilia's eye and lifted his eyebrows in a froggy greeting and she laughed. Even Dr. Gilbert Blythe was squiring his wife about in a low-key fox-trot. How like a girl Grandmother could look when she was happy! The band segued into _Sing Sing Sing_, and Nellie Douglas broke out of her shyness as she reached for her brother and pulled him onto the floor. The Douglases were all wonderful dancers and as Nellie and Marshall cut a rug the crowd formed a circle around them, clapping and cheering them on. When the song ended, the usually pale girl was so pretty and piquant and sparkling that Cecilia thought, oh, if only Walt could see her _now_!

Cecilia was so busy that she did not have time to look for Sid, but every time she turned her head she caught the sweetness of the orchids and thrilled over it. She organized the raffles—Cathy's kiss went for _ten dollars_, to Edgar Crawford, who turned pink with pleasure as he accepted it—and Shirley Blythe outbid everyone else for the honor of his wife's pies. After the auction was over, Cecilia counted the money in the iron box under the table and discovered to her delight, that they had raised over two hundred dollars for the war effort.

The festivities were not ended. Ilse Miller, from over in Blair Water, got up and gave a rousing address of _Flanders Fields _and for an encore, the only slightly less well-known _The Piper_, by Private Walter C. Blythe. If there was a dry eye in the house after that, it did not stay that way for long. A spotlight shone out on the stage, and a pretty girl in a white dress with flaming scarlet hair the color of the maple itself got up and sang the words to that hauntingly lovely song of faith and belief:

_There'll be bluebirds over_

_The white cliffs of Dover_

_Tomorrow, just you wait and see…_

As her cousin Bertha's voice soared out, just like the bluebird, over them all, Cecilia shivered with pain—and longing—and sadness—and hope, for that wonderful day when the war would end. It would—tomorrow—if not actually tomorrow then some other tomorrow. It would come—it _would_.

_The shepherd will tend his sheep, _Bertha sang;

_The valley will bloom again_

_And Jimmy will go to sleep_

_In his own little room again._

_There'll be love and laughter_

_And peace ever after_

_Tomorrow—when the world is free. _

Cecilia felt her eyes well up with tears as she thought of the boys who were away from home—perhaps frightened and homesick and heartsick and scared; perhaps hurt and in pain and dying; perhaps knowing with the certainty of death that they would never see home again with human eyes. Oh, _where_ will Gil and Walt tonight? She turned her face so that nobody should see her cry—she did not want to spoil the mood. There was a tentative touch on her shoulder and she looked up into Sid Gardiner's face.

The strain of their separation showed plainly in his eyes, and Cecilia reached out to touch his flushed cheek quite instinctually. Sid caught her hand and lifted it to his lips.

"I'm a fool," he said fiercely. "Cecilia—I _am a fool_. Can you forgive me, darling?"

"Oh, Sid," she said, launching herself into his arms. "I have—I already have."

Bertha finished her song and the band struck up one of the old-fashioned waltzes—_Let Me Call You Sweetheart_—and the floor was packed with mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles who had danced to this song when they were boys and girls, themselves. They were, for a moment, again, as they danced. Cecilia and Sid joined them, moving gracefully around the crowded floor. There might not have been anybody else there, save for themselves for all the notice they took of other people. They looked deeply into each others' eyes. Sid tightened his arm around her waist and wondered how he had ever lived through the past two weeks without this angel. Cecilia had already spackled over the broken places in their romance and was building castles in the air again.

Their happiness was seen by all. Marshall Douglas saw it as he danced with Abby Flagg and shrugged his shoulders under his suit jacket, never for a second letting his smile dim. How could he mind? Cecilia was a _woman_—a beautiful woman—he was only a silly kid. What had he expected? Pat Gardiner sighed while David Kirk spun her around the floor and thought that all was well in her world if her dear Siddy was happy. Una Blythe waltzed with her husband and darted little looks over his shoulder at her daughter. So Cecilia and Sid had made up whatever was between them. Ah—it was good to see her face glowing again—but still, still! Una sighed, part-relief, part-foreboding.

"He'll propose to her before the year is out," she predicted to herself. She was glad her girl was happy, but she could not help hoping, underneath, that she would be wrong. She was not ready to lose her little girl. She needed a few more years of her. She could not let her go—not yet.


	6. A War Christmas

The Greeks defeated the Italian army, but little Romania fell in the last days of November. They had all known it would, but still Cecilia was not prepared for it. It was a stunning blow to her. With every country that joined the Axis, a few more months were added to the duration of the war, which would not be over by Christmas or even springtime, now. She wept over it, quickly and fiercely, but soon picked herself up and focused instead on the British offensive in North Africa. There, at least, could be some success. They had known that Romania would fall—nothing about the African campaign could be predicted. So Cecilia whisked her fingers under her eyes and said,

"I'm going to believe the best will happen _there_, until I have evidence to the contrary."

But she knew if it turned out badly, it would crush her. Still: there was nothing left to do but try and accentuate the positive.

Christmas began to creep up on them—The first _real _war Christmas. Last Christmas, they had still been reeling from what the Germans had done to Poland, what the Soviets were doing in Scandinavia. Everything had been so fresh—even their hopes. They had really believed it would all soon be over, then. But they could not believe it now, and they could not, even for a day, pretend that nothing was happening. Two empty places—Gilly's and Walts—stared them in the face, and would not let them forget.

Cecilia was busy getting her presents in order. They had decided to keep things small this year, but she still kept one dollar from her allowance for each of her cousins and bought a war bond in their names. For baby Rosemary she knitted a little sweater—Aunt Rilla was teaching her—and for Marshall she knitted a pair of red woolen mittens. She wanted to find some way to thank him for his friendship of the past few months. She had an idea she would never have survived them without him. She took snapshots that she framed of herself and Romy for Mother and Dad, and fitted them into sweet little gold frames etched with flowers and vines. She made candy for Trudy and Owen and Jake and the boys overseas. For Joy she dipped into her savings to buy a beautiful pair of dove-gray gloves and for Blythe she bought a handsome leatherbound copy of Wilfred Owen's poetry. He had written during the first war and there was ugliness in his poems, but Cecilia bought the book based on only one stanza she happened to read over:

Of them who running on that last high place  
Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up  
On the hot blast and fury of hell's upsurge,  
Or plunged and fell away past this world's verge,  
_Some say God caught them even before they fell._

It was hope-giving, and she knew that it would help Blythe to make sense of the war's hideousness.

A week or two before Christmas, Aunt Persis and Uncle Carl in Montreal wrote and asked Shirley and Una to bring the girls and come and stay with them. Cecilia remembered the old Christmases of her life, how quiet and sweet they were. She and cousin Leslie had used to spend the night at each other's houses, and lay awake listening for Santa Claus. Cecilia missed Leslie—the girls had grown apart over the past two years. They were almost strangers now, when once they had been best friends. But oh, as much as she missed Leslie, she did not want to go to Montreal now, not when Blythe was coming home!

So it was arranged that Shirley and Una and Romy would go to the Montreal Merediths, and Cecilia would spend Christmas with the Lowbridge Merediths—Jerry and Nan and Joy and Blythe. She was sorry not to spend the holiday at Red Apple Farm, but after a day she got into the spirit of the plan. The Lowbridge manse was very sweet, and she could sleep with Joy—and stay up late with Blythe. They could talk to their hearts' content for once, and nobody would tell them it was getting to be the time for saying goodnight.

Cecilia tripped downstairs when she heard Uncle Jerry's car turning into the driveway. There was Blythe, in the passenger's seat—he opened his door and hopped out almost before the car had come to a stop. "Cecilia!" he cried, and she was born up on a wave of gladness by the sound of his voice.

"Blythe—Blythe!" she shouted, and she ran for his arms.

How tall he was! She had forgotten. And how sharp his ribs were—she could feel them under his sweater. "You've gotten to be too _thin_," she whispered, her eyes worried.

He grinned at her. "Too much studying," he whispered back. "And the food at the chow hall—well, it's nothing like Mother's, let's just say that."

"We're going to have the best Christmas," Cecilia said firmly, taking his cold cheeks in her warm hands. "It's going to be one to remember, Bly."

She had not thought of it before—but at that moment, she did—that it might also be their _last_ Christmas. Blythe would be eighteen in May, and for all the poetry he may have inherited from Uncle Walter, Blythe had not gotten any of his indecision about fighting. He would join up—he would. She looked into his eyes and she saw that he knew what she was thinking, in that way they had, of knowing each others' hearts. He gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. _Yes—I must_, said his quirked up mouth. Her heart turned over, and she buried her face in his chest. Listened to the steady thump-thump of his heart. Could there ever be a time when it would stop? Could there be a time when she would have to make her way in the world without him in it, too? Oh, she was glad she had not gone away—when this might be her last chance at Auld Lang Syne with Blythe!

"Inside," called Aunt Nan, from the porch. "Supper, boys and girls!"

Blythe kept his arm around Cecilia as he leaned in to kiss his mother and sister.

"It's good to be home," he said simply. "Home is the best place of all."

____________________________

On Christmas Eve they went to church, and Blythe held Cecilia's mittened hand in his while they listened to Uncle Jerry preach. He read from the nativity story of Luke, and everyone in the church smiled, thinking of the fight that was being waged for that ancient land. The British had just, last week, captured the Egpytian cities of Sidi Barrani and Sollum, and spirits were high. Cecilia had almost forgotten the travails of Romania at the news of those victories.

They had Christmas dinner at the Lowbridge manse. All of the young people were invited; the older folk were going to go to Ingleside, as usual. Aunt Nan left her kitchen to Cecilia and Joy, and they had fun making their own goose and concocting sweet delicacies for dessert. The government was already grumbling about rationing, so this might be their last chance to have cake—and cookies—and plum pudding—and doughnuts. They had a very delicious—if not terribly healthy—feast, and sent the boys into the kitchen to clean up. It was only fair, the girls felt, when they had done the hard work of putting the meal together.

Joy sat down at the piano and Marshall Douglas took up his guitar, and they had an old-fashioned carol-sing. It was such fun to sing the raucous old songs—Jingle Bells, The Holy and the Ivy, I Saw Three Ships, Blue Christmas. Joy and Marshall did a goodnatured duet, Marshall casting aside his guitar to get down on his knees to plead with Joy as she played:

_I really can't stay—but baby it's cold outside._

_I've got to go away—but baby it's gold outside…_

Jacob Penhallow surprised them by standing up after that and singing in a beautiful baritone, _It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. _Jacob—who was so shy—nobody had thought he could sing at all. Even Joy hadn't known. She jumped up from the piano bench when the song was finished and ringed her arms around his neck, and Cecilia thought of Sid, and how he hadn't been able to get away to come to their little party. What was he doing at Silver Bush, right now? Was he singing these same carols with his own family? Was—was May Binnie—even now, holding him the same way Joy held Jake? Lifting her face up to his—appealingly? How would Sid be able to resist? For all her terrible qualities, May was pretty—was beautiful, if you liked that kind of beauty.

Cecilia put her hand up and touched the earrings in her ears—pearls, to match the necklace Sid had given her years ago, for her sixteenth birthday. She suddenly felt stifled by all the light and heat, and got up, and made her way out onto the porch. Blythe followed her, and they sat on the steps, looking up at the stars, which seemed nearer and larger than they did at any other time. Polaris, that star of the north, gleamed larger than the others, and Cecilia thought of the first Christmas, of the star that had heralded the birth of the Prince of Peace. Peace—Peace—Peace—if they could only have peace, again, and the world could go back to the way it once was!

"Oh, Blythe," she said, leaning her head on his shoulder. "Nothing will ever be the same again—ever."

"But that's all right, in some ways—isn't it?" He fit his arms snugly about her waist. "We have to grow up—and change—or else life wouldn't be worth living. It would be sweet to be little kids again, Cecilia—but there are things that adults can do that kids can't—and those things are sweet—and Cecilia—it's like Paul said, it's time to 'put away childish things'—Cecilia, I—I—"

Blythe kissed her. Just the merest touch of his lips against hers. Cecilia's eyes sprang open. Blythe's face looked so strange, up close—it was so different from when Sid kissed her—she was not sure she liked it. What was Blythe—doing? Was he—drunk? They had used just a touch of brandy in the plum pudding, for the flambé, but surely that wasn't—enough? Why was he—_mashing_ his lips against hers that way?

But if Cecilia were honest, she would admit that Blythe was doing no such thing. His kiss was ordinary, as kisses go. He wasn't doing anything so very irregular that she should notice. It was just that the irregular thing—the very much out-of-the-ordinary thing—was that Blythe was kissing her at all. She was not expecting it. Perhaps if she had been expecting it—or wanting it—she would have liked it. Why was Blythe kissing her at all? Her mind whirred and clicked, trying to make sense of it. He was just carried away—it was a companionable kiss, a friendly kiss. It was her own mind making more of it.

The music inside the house had started up again. Cecilia heard the front door squeak open, and pulled herself away from Blythe at the sound. They looked up to see Marshall Douglas, standing uncertainly in the doorway. His face registered surprise—and something else—but he quickly smoothed it away.

"We're singing again," Marshall said, "And we need Cecilia to do the 'twelve days of Christmas.' She's the only one who knows all the words."

"Let's go in, then," said Blythe, jumping up—feeling, certainly, that if he stayed out on the porch Cecilia would tell him things he did not want to hear. Cecilia picked herself up more slowly—it is not an easy thing to do when your world has been suddenly turned on its end.

"Marshall," she said, at the door, clutching his arm. "What you saw—what you saw—it wasn't anything. It was just something silly—and stupid—and it won't happen again. It's not anything—you should mention—to anybody else." Thinking, that if Sid should hear of it, there would be trouble.

Marshall's green eyes did not dance, for once, as he looked down at her—down, because he had grown another four inches since the start of the school year. How tall he was getting to be! How—manly!

"You don't know me very well if you think I'd do that," he said, holding the door open for her and walking past her into the house. Cecilia followed him and took her place by the piano. She began the song, looking about the faces. So many cousins—so many friends—Marshall's eyes dark—Sid's face before her—Blythe's cheeks flushed—his kiss on her lips—her head whirling—

"And a partridge in a pear tree," poor Cecilia sang.

______________________________

A/N: Thanks for the reviews I've gotten on this new version. They mean so much to me. I've been told that if you've already reviewed this story you won't get to review again, but you can review signed out of your account, because I take anonymous reviews, and also you can leave a comment at A Tangled Blog (atangledblog . blogspot . com). Just remember to delete those spaces!


	7. A Seed of Doubt

Cecilia worried that the Kiss—as she was already thinking of it—would come between her and Blythe, but the truth is that neither of them ever spoke of it to each other, and things went on in much the same way they had before it had happened. She and Blythe and Joy went on many snowshoe rambles in the days leading up to the new year. They sat around the fire and ate apples roasted in the coals. They talked over war news, plotting and strategizing so much that Jerry Meredith heard them and smiled, thinking it was a pity Churchill and Ike Eisenhower couldn't hear them. But Nan Meredith heard them and sighed. Their childhoods were over—the war was eating up the happy days like a plague of locusts devastating a wheat-field. Her own girlhood had been full of war, and she had hoped her daughter and her son would be able to have years of sweet, unblighted days.

On 31 December the grownups went to bed early, but the three good friends sat up by the fire, spinning fortunes and waiting to welcome the year nineteen forty-one. They did not say, as they had last year, that nineteen forty-one would bring peace. They were not—could not be—that optimistic. They focused, instead, on the wonderful things that would happen in their own lives in the year that lay before them. Joy wished that Jacob would be offered the position at his uncle's bank in Bay Silver. She said nothing about wishing to become engaged, which led Cecilia to believe that perhaps that thing had already happened in secret. Her heart turned over in her chest. Were all good friends destined to pull away from each other, bit by bit, until at last all their bonds were broken? Blythe wanted to win the Thorburn scholarship. It would be a financial burden lifted from his parents' shoulders, if he did win it. Cecilia perked up—he could not be seriously thinking of going away if he were planning for the next year at Redmond.

"And what do you wish?" he asked Cecilia lightly, perhaps hoping that she would say something that would be very beautiful to his ears. Not really believing she would—but hope is a thing with feathers, light and airy, above leaden practicalities.

"I wish," said Cecilia slowly, "That the war would be ended and our boys would come home."

"We all wish that," said Joy. "Wish for something selfish, for once."

"All right," Cecilia said, thoughtfully. "I'd like to go to Redmond—and do a course in biology—and then I think I'd like to go to medical school and get my M.D. But—I don't think Dad could afford to put me through anytime soon."

"Your M.D.!" Joy crowed, amazed. It was a big ambition for a girl from Four Winds—for any girl, really, of that time. Joy had never heard of any female doctor before, except for Marigold Woodruff, over in Harmony. But Dr. Woodruff was an old woman, and Cecilia—Cecilia was a lithe, lissome young thing. It seemed impossible to imagine her in a white coat, bending over bedsides and cutting pills.

"You don't _really_ wish that," said Blythe anxiously. "You've only been reading too many _Cherry Ames_ books."

"Indeed I do wish it!" cried Cecilia with some spirit. "I've never read _Cherry Ames_, and anyway, she is a nurse, and I want to be a doctor. I don't see why you should look so skeptical, Blythe. I've never sneered at your dreams of becoming a poet. Anyway, Uncle Bruce thinks I can do it—he promised me, once, that if I got myself through Redmond with top marks he'd pay for medical school himself."

"You couldn't be a doctor," said Blythe certainly. "It is such _ugly_ work. It will destroy your ideals. It would—it would _ruin _you. After a few years, you wouldn't be able to think of the world as beautiful anymore."

"There is just as much beauty in doctoring as ugliness," said Cecilia, close to tears. "Helping a new baby into the world—easing pain—holding the hand of a dying man as he crosses from one world to the next. That is _true_ beauty, Blythe—for all of your trees and rocks and clouds!"

"I'll fight tooth and nail against you if you try to do it," said Blythe succinctly. "No—" for a moment Cecilia thought, aghast, that he might say, _no wife of mine_. "No _friend_ of mine shall ever do such a dirty life's work."

"Is that what you think of _grandfather_ and _Uncle Jem_?"

"They are men," said Blythe. "And you are, Cecilia—you are—you—"

His stormy gray eyes looked into Cecilia's as if she was the only other person in the room besides himself, and again she thought he might say something that would give away that moment on the porch on Christmas Eve.

"You are everything to me," Blythe finished.

"Oh, don't argue tonight," pleaded Joy. "Let's get back to our predictions. I think Sid is going to propose to Cecilia any day now—and then the question will be settled as to her being a doctor not. Sid would never let his wife work outside the home. So likely you'll never have to worry about it, Blythe."

Joy met with the peacemaker's usual fate: by trying to please both her friends she succeeded in pleasing neither of them. "Sid _would_ let me work," Cecilia cried, and Blythe glowered at the very idea of that loutish Gardiner married to his own little darling.

_________________________

In late January, Jacob Penhallow _was_ offered the position at his uncle Pennycuik's bank, but he did not take it, as Joy had hoped and all of the Darks and Penhallows had expected. Instead, he joined the army—and Cecilia was surprised at how well Joyce took the news. She did not go into hysterics, or sob over it. But neither was she exactly _happy_. She only seemed matter-of-fact about it all.

"Of course he had to go," she said, a little shamefacedly. "I see that, now. I didn't always. But I sat down with Mother the night I learned of his intentions, and we talked about it. Mother pointed out that she hadn't wanted Father to go, either, until she considered the effect of him _not_ going. We _will_ win this war, Cecilia—and when we do, Jacob needs to be able to say that he was a part of the triumph. He wouldn't be able to hold his head up if he didn't. He'd always feel like he wasn't a part of the wonderful things that are coming after. It would separate him from all good and beautiful things and people if he was to stay home—his soul would grow small. So—I told him that he _should_ go, and that I'd be proud of him, and wouldn't hold him back from his duty."

Joy smiled, and brought the little diamond winking on her hand up to her lips, and kissed it. Cecilia could not doubt that they were engaged any longer. Once she had learned of the engagement, she had expected that Joy would immediately throw herself into planning a war-wedding—but her cousin surprised her, again, there.

"We want to wait until it's all over," she said firmly. "Oh, I'd marry Jacob now—in a heartbeat—but we don't want any hint of this war attached to our lives. If we got married now—it would seem like we _expected_ something to happen—it would seem like we were doing it of necessity, or convenience, not of love. We want to wait and celebrate our happiness 'when the world is free,' like Bertha sang the night of our Armistice day dance. Then we will be able to do it without the complication of war. And I'll have time to plan it out properly this way. No hastily-made dresses for me! I'm going to have a wedding that _is_ a wedding—at Father's church, with a host of bridesmaids and a reception at the light. And I'll have a while to settle the matter of my trousseau—I want to have a hemstitched linen service for twelve, and everything is going to have a monogram of two 'J's intertwined—for Joyce and Jacob."

"Well, as long as that is settled," said Cecilia gravely, her eyes dancing. All at once Joy seemed very settled and matronly and the effect was darling. Oh—Joy was born to be married—it suited her. Joy did not notice her dancing eyes and gave a small sigh of satisfaction.

"When Jacob comes home we're going to settle in Rose River—in that old house that belonged to his mother's people. Maywood—you know it—near the shore, set back against that hill of spruce. We're going to have three girls, all in a row—and a boy for good measure. Jake's people have been very nice to me. Howard, his brother, is overseas already but Jacob must have written to him weeks ago because I had the nicest letter from him, welcoming me to the family. And Rebecca Penhallow—you know her—I always thought her so snobby but last night at Beechurst she actually wept for joy—she had always wanted a 'sister' and now she is going to have one."

Cecilia moved over and put her arms around Joy and gave her cousin a smacky kiss.

"I am happy for you, darling," she said, and meant it. "And I _love_ Maywood—it is a dear little house. I've always liked the looks of it."

"And you'll be at Silver Bush one day," sighed Joy, rapturous with happiness. "It's only a hop, skip and a jump from Rose River. We'll be able to run over to each other every day. Oh, Cecilia, you must give Sid some encouragement. If you got engaged soon we could plan together—and work on our things together—and have a double wedding. It would be just marvelous—don't you think?"

Cecilia felt a queer feeling wash over her. She had never actually considered being married to Sid before—not in actual, concrete terms of when, and where, and how. Could she see herself coming home to Sid every day? He would, no doubt, have certain ideas of how a marriage should be run. Mrs. Gardiner was an invalid, but Pat and Judy Plum spoiled him shamefully. He would be used to being taken care of. _Could _she serve him supper every night, meekly and subserviently? And _would_ he let her work, if she decided she wanted to? Joyce had said he wouldn't. She could be right. Cecilia had once heard him run down Pat's friend, Suzanne Kirk, for giving music lessons. And that was not a bit like _real _work! It was only something she did in her spare time!

And then there was the fact—Cecilia was only seventeen, and would not be eighteen for months. She felt grownup—but she knew in her heart that she was too young to decide right now the course of the rest of her life. Why—why—only fast girls like Trix Binnie got married at seventeen, these days!

And as soon as she had the thought of _Binnie_ came another misgiving. She had been unfortunate enough to encounter May Binnie herself coming out of Silver Bush yesterday when she had dropped in. Cecilia's blood had bubbled up but she was determined to keep her head on straight and not let it get to her. But oh—how May had vied for Sid's attention—and how she had got it, sometimes! She had worn a glamorous off-the-shoulder peasant blouse—in _January_—and what a bewitching way she had of lifting her shoulder up to her chin and looking up from under her long, pale lashes. Bewitched—it was the right word—Sid _was_ bewitched by her. He had not been able to take his eyes from her. May had the tendency to bring out the deadliest part of people—she turned Pat into Wrath, Cecilia into Envy and Sid—yes!—into Lust.

Could she live her whole life knowing that her husband loved her—but was fascinated by another? Was that love? Cecilia closed her eyes and tried to think of an ordinary day in the lives of Sid and Cecilia Gardiner. Sid would work the fields—she would cook and clean—he would come home in the evenings and…and what? What would they talk of? Sid did not read books and he did not like music. He loved being out of doors—but only at Silver Bush. He was like Pat in that way. How would they fill the long evenings, then? And the Gardiners were dear—but they were not her people—and they were so clannish, always together. Oh, oh, how sad she felt, all at once, at the very thought—how lonely and _separated _from her life and her self!

"I must calm down," she thought, choking back panic. "I won't be like Betty Baxter—worrying about such things before a man ever 'axes' me."

But her moment of doubt had stripped the gold-plate from her romance. When Sid picked her up that night, Cecilia could only find faults with him. How complacent he was—when a song was on the radio he remarked he did not like it, but made no move to turn it off. And _why_ didn't he like it? It was a nice song—Doris Day singing "Why Don't We Do This More Often?"—full of sultriness and promise and contentedness. What was not to like? And why was Sid so critical? It seemed _nothing_ could please him.

To cover her annoyance, she told him a funny story about seeing Jacob in his new uniform—they hadn't had any in his size, and so he had to make do for now with pants that were too short and showed an inch of sock. But Joy didn't mind—he might have been a wearing a clown suit and she wouldn't have cared—she was that proud of him.

To which Sid grew rather frosty and replied,

"I'm sorry _you_ don't have a fellow you can be proud of that way."

And Cecilia, it must be admitted, turned her head away—_and rolled her eyes. _


	8. Goings and Comings

Anne Blythe wound a scarf around her neck one mild February day and took herself down to Rainbow Valley as she was wont to do on fine days, more and more, lately. That dear little place was so unchanging in times of turmoil, and the news from Africa lately was grim. Hitler had sent Rommel to make short work of the Allies, and it was beginning to look as though he _would_. Anne switched off the radio, and heard the bells at the top of the Tree Lovers ringing, calling to her with their silvery notes. And so she went.

The truth was, she had another reason for going. She had had a letter that day from young Walt—he was in Somaliland. The sight of his name—Private Walter Blythe—had made her remember another. It was twenty-five years since Walter had died at Courcelette, but there were still times when the sting of his loss was as new and fresh to that mother's heart as if it had happened yesterday. She felt close to Walter in that place he had loved, and so she went, hoping that she would encounter his spirit there.

What she did encounter was an impish, black-curled boy, who saluted her with affection as he ran along, and then, perched on the frozen ground by the brook, she found her granddaughter, with a sheaf of papers spread out around her. Anne smiled at Cecilia, who was very dear to her. She would not say 'dearest'—there was no need for superlatives—but the girl was special to her in a way the others were not. She could not forget the friendless, frightened little baby that had shown up on her doorstep. _She_ had needed love in a way the other, charmed boys and girls did not. And, Anne reflected, it was nice to be needed. She sat down gracefully next to the girl in a way that belied her seventy-five years.

"Was that tall, handsome chap I passed Mary's boy?" she wondered.

"It was indeedy," smiled Cecilia. "Marshall can't stop getting taller—it seems he's growing for Canada. One day he'll be ten feet tall and I'll have to climb a beanstalk to wish him good morning. Mary Vance—Mrs. Douglas, I mean—told Mother it's like trying to hold water in a sieve to keep him in shoes that _fit_."

"Mary Vance has such pretty children," Anne remarked. "They are all good-looking things—though I rather prefer little Cornelia. She is like a tall white June lilies that grew all around Avonlea—they were always among my favorite flowers. Well, what were you and 'little' Marshall up to? Having a good gossip about things you can't tell an old lady?"

"I tell you _all_ my gossip, grandmother," said Cecilia, reproachfully. "No—Marshall was here helping me with my history homework—we're studying economics and I can't keep all these rules and laws straight in my mind. But Marshall can—I think it will be a crying shame if he never gets to do that business course he wants. He would be a success in business, I've no doubt. We worked at it for an hour—and now I'm rewarding myself with a sheaf of letters that came in today's mail."

"Will you feed me bits and scraps from them?"

"Of course!"

Cecilia unfolded her first letter and scanned it. "This is from Uncle Bruce," she said. "You know Auntie Penny is expecting a baby, didn't you?"

"Yes—in late April?"

"Thereabouts. Well, Uncle Bruce's reserve unit has been called up, and he is to go overseas in next month. He talked it over with mother and they've agreed: he's going to send Aunt Penny to us at Red Apple Farm. I can't _wait_ to see her—I don't see either of them as much as I'd like, since they moved to Halifax. I'm proud of Uncle Bruce for going—though I _do_ think it rather mean of the army not to let him stay and see his little baby be born."

"In times like these, the army can't be lenient even with expectant fathers," said Anne sadly. "Well, I shall be glad to see 'pretty Penny' again, myself—and it will be delicious to have another baby in the family. Perhaps she can be a friend for small Romy. I love my little Romy—but I worry about her, not having a playmate of her age. If this baby is a girl, they can be good friends like you and Joy and Trudy are. Who is your next letter from?"

Cecilia had opened it and was already reading. About halfway through a change came over the girl's face, and her smile, which had been genuine at first, had a stiff, tacked-on quality, now.

"It is from Blythe," she said, casually, folding the letter and slipping it back into the envelope.

"And does he say anything interesting?"

"Oh—here and there," said Cecilia, absently. She began to gather up her papers and stood. "Grandmother—I have to run home for my chores. May I come down and have supper with you, later?"

"Of course, dear heart," said Anne. and she watched the girl run fleetly through the valley toward home.

Cecilia ran until she was out of breath. Then she stopped and unfolded Blythe's letter from where she had tucked it in the waistband of her skirt. She lingered by the road and read it over again, more slowly this time.

_I am sorry for what I said to you on New Years', _Blythe began, without even any salutation, so Cecilia knew the small little burst of words between them must have been weighing heavily on his mind since that night. _Cecilia—forgive me. I'm a brute, betimes. I didn't mean to belittle your hopes—if they are indeed your hopes and dreams for yourself—it is just that I have, in my mind, a beautiful picture of how the world should be. And when anything threatens that happy little scene I'm afraid I don't take it well. It is my worst fault—and I am trying to correct it, honey. If you accept my apology, won't you write me right away and tell me so? I can't _live _in the world, when I feel you are angry with me. It hurts too much. _

_Cecilia—I think about something else that was said that night. I think often of what Joy said—that Sid will ask you to be his wife, soon. You know how I feel about him—that he is not good enough for you—but for all that, I don't _really_ know how you feel about _him_. Do you—can you—love him enough so that when he asks, you will say yes? It seems incredible to me, but perhaps I am deceiving myself—seeing only what I want to see. And it must have occurred to you that I don't want to see THAT. _

_Cecilia—I am going to ask you to do another thing for me. You may not want to do it, but I will ask all the same. Here it is: if Sid Gardiner _does _ask you to marry him, will you promise to talk it over with me, first, before giving your answer? I won't try to sway you either way—I just want you to have the chance to reflect on it before you lock yourself down. Write me—or wire me—or call me long distance—but just _promise_ you won't agree to be his wife, without letting me know first. Will you do it, darling? Will you?_

Cecilia folded her letter with shaking hands. It seemed like such a small thing to say Blythe was her best friend—it seemed inadequate—he was the other half of herself. He was her shared soul living in another body. But she did not quite like his last request. Why—she felt it would be almost like asking his _permission_ to marry Sid! How presumptuous of him—how possessive! She did not like it. She did not like it at all!

But she could not stay mad at Blythe very long. He only loved her—and worried about her—and wanted the best with her. And they had always been such good friends—so close—with no boundaries. She could not expect now that he should act like there were. Still—it was inappropriate of him to ask her to promise. She tore the letter in half, and folded it back into the envelope. When Sid asked her—_if_ Sid asked her—she would not dream of honoring the promise that Blythe had asked her to give. It was none of his business, and he must learn that there were things in her life of which he could have no part.

___________________________

Penelope Meredith was installed with minimum fuss at Red Apple Farm at the end of the month, and her arrival coincided with the overthrow of the Axis government by the Yugoslavs, and so the whole world seemed to be shining and celebratory in response. Penny was pretty and plump and round—so round that Cecilia gasped when she saw her.

"Oh, Aunt Penny—are you sure you're having a baby _human_? And not a baby—horse?"

"There was a time I'd have boxed your ears for that," said Penny merrily. "But as it is, I'm rather pleased with my new shape, so I'll let you live. Is this where you're going to put me while I'm here? What a dear little room you've all fixed up for me, little Cecilia. I see your handiwork everywhere. Where did you find such sweet crocuses in February? And did your mother make this quilt up just for me?"

"Yes," said Cecilia, smoothing the coverlet over the mattress of the pretty white brass bed in the erstwhile sewing room—Aunt Penny's room, until Uncle Bruce should come and collect her from it. "She did it in shades of green and gold—your colours. And see this little bassinette? The baby will sleep here until its old enough to go in the nursery with Romy. Oh, Aunt Penny—do you think it will be a little girl? It must be—so she and Romy can be friends."

"I hope it will be healthy and have Bruce's eyes," said Penny. "Other than that I do not care if it _is_ a horse."

Cecilia loved having her aunt with her, under the same roof. There was a time when she and Penelope Branston Meredith had not been the best of friends—but now they recognized each other as of the race that knew Joseph. Penny was the youngest, and most glamorous of her aunts—she had worked as a barrister in Halifax, and was only ten years older than Cecilia herself. It was like having a big sister. Cecilia loved Romy, and had loved Susan, but she always felt that to have a _big _sister would be heaven.

They sat up late that first night and filled each other in on the details of their lives. Penny told Cecilia of her fears for Bruce, but she echoed Joy's words about love and duty so that Cecilia knew that deep down, her aunt was proud of her husband. Cecilia admitted shyly to aunt Penny that she had a boyfriend—it was Sid Gardiner—and things were 'pretty serious' between them. Penelope Meredith watched the girl watch her hands as she revealed her secret. Was there a reason why she should look so downcast, instead of uplifted to the height of maiden meditation fancy-free? Young love was a time for blushes and smiles, not this tired little down-quirk of mouth and eye. Well, perhaps the Gardiner boy was thinking of joining up or something, and Cecilia was worried over it. Penny yawned, and stood up, with some difficulty.

"I have a thousand more questions for you, dearest, but _somebody _is poking and prodding at my ribs, reminding me that I should get to sleep. So we'll have to continue our talk in the morning."

"Oh, Aunt Pen," asked Cecilia, looking for all the world like a little girl again, "Might I come and sleep with you—just tonight—your first night here? It would be like having a pajama party—and I won't have to worry about you being cold or lonely up there all by your self."

"I'd like nothing better," Penelope told her niece. When Cecilia had changed into her pajamas and slipped under the covers, she pulled the slim body close against her own for comfort. What a pretty little thing she was turning out to be—she had a face for smiles, and was as unlike that little somber girl Penny Branston had accompanied to the Island three years ago as night was from day. Except not entirely different—there had been sweetness there then and it was there, still. She kissed the shining black hair spread out against the pillow. Cecilia Blythe was her treasure, and she, Penny Meredith, was determined to see the girl as safe and happy as was humanly possible in a world where Hitler's armies ran rampant. But then—Penny was not the only one.


	9. The Valley of Indecision

One evening in the beginning of March, Sid Gardiner squired Cecilia Blythe to a party at the Bay Shore. The fete was held in honor of one of his Madison cousins going away overseas. Cecilia had a good time, despite the note of goodbye in the festivities. She made merry with the Gardiners and their ilk, and wished Bobby Madison luck in such a sweet voice and with such an appealing, earnest face, that that fellow immediately saw any regrets he might have had about going whisked away. It would not be difficult to fight for a country that had girls as sweet as cousin Sid's little Cecilia. What a lucky fellow Sid was! Bob Madison never forgot her little face when he was away—and he would always wonder at Sid, whenever he heard of what happened later that night, and in the days that followed.

Here _is _what happened: close to nine o'clock, Cecilia and Sid took their leave and set out by car along the shore road toward Four Winds. It was a wonderful night, and so when Sid pulled off the road near a pretty overlook, Cecilia did not question it, but walked with him through the snow that had fallen in the night to look down the side of the hill to the valley spread below. The sky was a great bowlful of stars overhead. Sid stood behind her with his arms around her waist. They were silent a long while, until at last he spoke. She felt the words rumbling in his chest almost rather than hearing them.

"Cecilia—won't you marry me?"

How pretty, she thought, watching as a lazy spiral of blue smoke curled up against the dark sky. And then the meaning of his words hit her. It was what everyone said was coming—she had believed it was, herself—but now that it _had _come, it had blindsided her.

"Oh," she gasped, her breath taken away by the suddenness of it. "Oh!"

Sid heard it and mistook it for a sound of outright acquiescence. "Of course it can't be for some time," he said. "Dad has saved a lot in the back pasture for us to build a house, but I must buy it from him, and earn enough to do so. It will take me close to two years, at this rate. But it won't seem that long—we'll have something to hope and work for, together. Cecilia,"—for Sid was only now realizing that many moments had passed without her giving a definitive answer, "You will marry me—won't you?"

"Oh, Sid," said Cecilia, and her eyes darkened so that they were almost black. "I could—

I might—Sid, I have to go. I can't give you an answer right now."

"Why not?" Sid questioned.

"I must think about it—I'm so young—it is such a big step. And I must talk it over with—"

Cecilia had not planned on saying that last part. Why had she? She had decided that she would not honor the promise Blythe asked of her, and here she was—honoring it? Oh—why? Why?

"With whom?" Sid thundered. "Until you talk it over with _whom_?"

"With Blythe," said Cecilia piteously. "I have to talk it over with Blythe, first."

Sid pulled away from her and turned to look at the dark valley for a moment. "Cecilia," he asked, with his back still to her. "Are you in love with Blythe Meredith?"

"_No_," said Cecilia forcefully. But Sid whirled to look at her, disgustedly.

"I think you are," he said. "And I know—I know you kissed him. On Christmas Eve. I heard all about it. I didn't want to believe it was true—but now I see that it _is_. You can't love me—because you love _him_."

"I don't!" Cecilia cried, beginning to cry. "Blythe kissed _me—_it was just something stupid that happened, Sid. I didn't tell you because I thought nothing of it. Blythe is my friend—my dearest friend—but my friend, only. And I don't know who told you but they got the story all mixed up."

Although she did have a sneaking suspicion of who might have told. There was only one person who had seen what had happened—Marshall. Cecilia's heart broke as she recalled his promise that he wouldn't tell—but he had. He had lied to her face—and then he had told Sid—and then he had pretended to go on being her friend when he had betrayed her. She was not _really_ good friends with Marshall—he was only a chum—so why did his betrayal hurt as much as it did?

"Sid," she said, trying to wrap his arms around him. But he threw her off and stalked back to the car. They drove back to Red Apple Farm in silence, and when Cecilia tried to kiss him, he turned his face away. Choking back a sob, she flew up the steps and to her room where she cast herself facedown on the bed and cried and cried. But was she crying for her failed romance—the pain she had caused with that stolen kiss—or for a fledgingly friendship killed?

She did not know, and so she cried for all those things.

_________________________________

Sid and Cecilia did not speak again for several days, during which Cecilia did _not_ write to Blythe about it as she thought she would. Sid's question rankled in her brain—did she love Blythe? Oh, she loved him fiercely—but did she love him like _that_? At times she thought she did, but at other times—for the first time—she hated him. She felt as though Blythe had ruined something for her, without even being there, and felt more distant from him than she ever had. Two letters came for her from him in the space of two days, and she read neither of them. She answered epistles from Gilly and Walt—she wrote back to them charmingly—but Blythe's letters she hid under her mattress and tried to forget about them.

"I won't be in love with Blythe!" she scolded herself. "And I won't ask his permission for _anything_—I won't let him have a hold on me!"

But she could not pretend he didn't--he _did_.

Marshall came by the farm with his Keynes, but Cecilia would not speak to him, except to storm downstairs and hurl a vicious look at him.

"You said you wouldn't tell about Blythe kissing me, but you _did._ You needn't deny it—I _know_ you did."

"I didn't," said Marshall, agape at the look of fury on her face. He had not expected that Cecilia _could _look so furious. That kind of feeling seemed to go against her sweet nature.

"You are a liar," she said simply. "And I don't want anything to do with liars. Go away, Marshall, and don't come back."

Marshall had a healthy dose of temper himself. He went—and he did not come back.

At night, Aunt Penny heard, through the wall, Cecilia pacing up and down. Una noticed the girl's red, swollen eyes over breakfast, but she did not say anything because she did not know what to say. Cecilia lived in an agony of loneliness. She could not go to Blythe—or Marshall—and Joy would only tell her to take Sid's offer because Joy wanted everyone to be married. And Sid—she dared not telephone him, or show up at Silver Bush.

She felt utterly, and wholly, alone.

Sid showed up at Red Apple one witchy, early spring night—with his hands in his pockets and a grim look on his face. Cecilia saw him coming from her bedroom window and flew downstairs to meet him. At that moment, she loved him. He would come to her and lift her out of this pit of loneliness. She met him in the yard without even bothering with a coat, and despite the chill, her face was rosy and flushed with pleasure.

"Sid!" Cecilia threw her arms around him. She had not realized how much she missed him—how much she _loved_ him—until that moment. She had been thinking he was lost to her--to see him there now was a relief—and a joy. But he did not put his arms around her.

"Sid!" she laughed. "Oh, darling, don't be cross." In a moment her mind was made up—so quickly she did not even have to think about it.

"Of course I'll marry you, dearest," she whispered, lifting her face for a kiss. "I didn't even have to ask Blythe—I asked my heart, and it told me the answer. I couldn't get along without you. Darling, I _will_."

But Sid's lips did not touch her upraised ones. And still he did not touch her. Why didn't he touch her? He had slipped his hands out of his pockets—now he held her—but it was only to push her away. The look on his face was that of a man who has walked through fire—a man in whose soul the fire has forever gone out. There was a glint of something gold on his finger and Cecilia felt the world begin to tilt. Sid's lips parted—but still he did not kiss her—he spoke, and his voice was as cold as the frozen ground.

"I can't marry you, Cecilia," he said. It was like the yelp of a dog that expects to be beaten.

"Why—why not, Sid?"

Sid held his hands before him. They trembled—there _was_ an unfamiliar gold band around the fourth finger of his left hand. "Because I'm already married—to—to someone else."


	10. The Mothers Talk It Over

Rilla Blythe came up to Red Apple Farm one lion-like day in March. Despite the weather, everything in Rilla's world was going well—as well as could be expected when she had a son making bombing runs over England—when Hitler's army was in the beginning of what would be called the 'Spring Crisis' of 1941. But happiness is relative, and Rilla had her house in order and Trudy and Owen were home from school for mid-semester break, and so she supposed that she must be contented with her lot or else risk 'losing faith.'

She found Una and Penelope in the parlor. Nan was there, and also Faith, who had come up from Ingleside. Mary Vance was knitting with an aggrieved air by the fire. Rilla knew why they all had come—she had come for the same reason herself. Everyone was buzzing over what had happened. This news about Sid Gardiner was disturbing. His marriage to the Binnie girl was so quick, and so unexpected. And what a blow for poor Cecilia! They all wanted to know how best to protect their girl.

"What is the current state of affairs?" she wondered, accepting the cup of tea that Una passed her.

"We've been talking over—what else?" sighed Faith. "Sid Gardiner and May Binnie—May _Gardiner_, I suppose I should say. Oh, Una—has Cecilia told you anything?"

"She refuses to speak of it," Una admitted, retrieving the ball that Romy had rolled under the sofa, and handing it to her. "She informed me and Shirley last night that everything with her and Sid was over—and then she went up to her room and did not come down for dinner—when I woke up this morning there was only a note that said she'd gone to school early to do some research for her history paper. She called from Ingleside an hour ago—she is going to spend the night there. I think she can't quite face things the way they are right now—she needs to feel that she is safe, and tucked away from things. If I could only—know—what happened between them. Then perhaps I could make sense of this mess."

"I've heard a few rumours," said Faith, darkly. "I met George Flagg—he owns the Bay Shore Motel, you know—and he said he saw Sid in there, _drinking_, at the bar. And May came in—and I don't know if I should say because it might not be true—though George is honest—all that branch of Flaggs are, scrupulously so. He says that Sid and May _went upstairs_ together. And that they did not come down until the next morning. And he supposes they _had_ to be married, after that."

There was a shocked silence that fell over the group of women. Sid Gardiner was a man of twenty—they knew of men who could not control themselves in that area—but they all had girls around May's age, and the very idea of two unmarried people…well, it was shocking. Mary Vance shook her head fiercely.

"I'm keeping my own girls under lock and key from here on out," she said. "Though _they're_ good girls—and the Binnie girls are nothing but trash. I told Theresa Binnie once that May would get into trouble like this, and she said, 'As long as she gets a husband out of it…' And now she has, and a rich one, to boot, so I suppose all is well in _her_ eyes."

"I'm afraid I overheard a private conversation between Joy and Cecilia last night," confessed Nan. "I heard Joy tell Cecilia the same story about the hotel—she must have gotten it from Abby Flagg—and Cecilia said, 'So Sid did it because he wanted to hurt me—to pay me back. But oh—he took it a little far, I think!' I'd no idea what she was talking about, and Joy didn't seem to know, either. 'To pay you back for what?' she asked, but Cecilia wouldn't say, and I felt badly about listening, and so I moved on."

"Cecilia would never do anything bad," said Rilla certainly, reaching over to pat Una's hand reassuringly. "She has the best heart of any of our girls."

"She _has _done something to Marshall," Mary sighed. "He won't eat. Can't sleep. He gets up before the sun and runs for miles around the harbor, and comes home looking like death. He got a C on his algebra test—and Marshall never makes a C in anything. I said to Miller, 'Find out what's wrong with him.' Marshall only told him that Cecilia was angry with him, and that he couldn't find a way to set things right. He has tried, but she cuts him dead each time. I hope she forgives him soon, Una—the boy will starve otherwise."

"I hate that she is so unhappy," Una said, thinking of her wish that things would fall apart between Sid Gardiner and her girl. She took it back, now—she would see Cecilia married to the Devil himself if she were only happy—if that terrible white look was only gone from her face.

"Penny, can't you talk to her, and tell us what's wrong so we might fix it?" asked Rilla, pleadingly.

Penny shook her head and said nothing. In truth, Cecilia had poured out certain parts of the story to her aunt, but Penny would not break her confidence for the world. But she realized that if her sisters-in-law and _their _sisters-in-law found out she knew something, they would never let her get away without telling them all. So she buttoned her lips, thinking of the posters that were everywhere these days: _Loose Lips Sink Ships_.

"What a lot of dramatics between our young people!" Faith marveled. "In _our_ day, it was bad enough only to ride a pig through town. Now you have boys and girls and hotels and drink and starvation diets and rivalries and feuds. Penny—are you all right, dear? Shall I send for Jem?"

Penny had half-risen from her chair, and clutched her belly. "Oh, no," she said, settling back down. "I'm all right—thank you, Faith. My little one was only poking around in my ribs. He's been so active lately—but he shouldn't come for another month. He's just decided to worry me a little."

"They start earlier and earlier," Mary Vance said wisely, and the group of mothers gave a collective sigh, and settled down to discussing something else.

________________________

Cecilia was not the same after that. Can we ever be the same after we have been disappointed by our fellow man? After our ideals have been twisted and torn--after the things we thought were certain were shown to be false? She would realize, with time, that was she had with Sid Gardiner was the tempestuous first love of youth—nothing in comparison with what real love is. She would laugh—she would be joyous—she would love. But something bitter and cynical had touched her soul and there forever left its mark. And there it would always remain, no matter how faint.

She mourned—not for her lost love, but for the loss of Sid—the loss of the man she thought she'd known. She drooped visibly, like a wilted flower, and when spring came, it seemed like a slap in the face. Everywhere Cecilia turned someone was looking at her with pity or curiosity. Occasionally, she overheard such terrible rumors. Some people said that May was going to have a baby. Others said that Sid dropped Cecilia because she wouldn't do what May had so obviously done. For her part, Cecilia said nothing to refute these rumors, and so people began to believe them. But the general population of their small circle was on her side.

Pat Gardiner slipped up to visit her one evening. She looked as miserable as Cecilia felt. Her brook-brown eyes were burning with anguish. She slipped her brown paw into Cecilia's white one.

"It's so horrible," she said. "We all thought Siddy would marry you. We prepared ourselves for you. And instead—we got May."

"I hope you don't blame me for what happened," Cecilia said. "If I had answered Sid straight out, he wouldn't have married May."

"I don't blame you," said Pat, close to tears. "You only asked for a little time to think. I'd need the same—if anybody asked me. It is a big step, leaving home. You didn't make Sid do what he did. Judy says the 'divvil' did. Cecilia, I'd hate to lose your friendship over this. We _can_ still be friends—can't we?"

"We can," said Cecilia slowly. "I—I like you awfully, Pat Gardiner. But I shan't be able to visit you. I—I couldn't bear seeing Sid—with _her_."

"I understand," said Pat. "I can't bear it, either." She leaned her brown head against Cecilia's and the girls sat silently together for a while.

She was not angry with Sid like Pat was. She couldn't be. Her anger was a drop in a bucket compared to his punishment of having to live his whole life with May. Her annoyance with Blythe had faded—the only person she hated, now, was Marshall Douglas. There was no doubt in her mind that Marshall had told about the kiss with Blythe. She could not bear to see his face, and whenever he tried to stop to talk to her, she turned her head away from him, as though he was not there.

Cathy Douglas came over one evening with a satisfied smile.

"I saw May Binnie in the store today," she said. "It's out of her way to go there—she should go to Appleby's in Bay Silver—she only came, I think, in the hopes that she could see you, and gloat. Nellie wouldn't serve her, but I just walked right up to her. 'You've a lot of nerve showing your face after what you did to Cecilia!' I told her. And she laughed. Cecilia, I saw red—I sat down on a keg of nails and I grabbed May and turned her over my knee—and _spanked_ her! It was quite easy—she is so small—and everybody laughed when she hollered. She said she'd have the law on me, but Mother came out of the back and cried, 'Do—do!' And May set off, vanquished. I don't think she'll show her face around here, again."

But Cecilia was not pleased over Cathy's story, though the idea of May Binnie being soundly spanked was not an unpleasant one. "But I _don't_ want May Binnie smiling her cat's smile because she thinks she's hurt _me_," she said to herself, when Cathy had gone.

After two weeks' of agony, Cecilia smiled—over something Blythe had written to her. Blythe was remarkably sorry about what had happened. Cecilia had thought he might gloat, but he didn't. One day, she laughed with Joy over some shared little story and Una heard her, and her heart glowed with hope. After a few more days, Cecilia was herself again, and the color returned to her cheeks. She cuddled baby Rosemary and splashed her in her bath. She took long walks with Penny and when she came back, her eyes were sparkling. The people that loved her breathed a sigh of relief. The old Cecilia was coming back—and they were glad to have her.

But Cecilia did not sing as she once had done.


	11. A Confession and a Chill

Spring came fleetly to the Island that year. All at once, seemingly overnight, it seemed the snows melted and the crocuses began to unfurl themselves from muddy ground. Rommel, the Desert Fox, moved for Tobruk in North Africa. Yugoslavia—valiant Yugoslavia—fell to the Axis. How glad they had been for its bravery—what a crushing blow came to their spirit to hear it had been taken!

"There are times," said Penny Meredith with a collapse of spirit, "That I wonder what kind of a world it is that I'm bringing my child into. Will he or she suffer as we have suffered? Will Canada be a German colony—will my baby grow up to be a Nazi?"

"Oh, Aunt Penny, don't speak like that," said Cecilia, beseechingly. "Can't you take any heart from the fact that we have beaten the Germans once? Mother and Daddy's war came out on the side of right—so surely ours will, too."

Penelope smiled at the girl's faulty logic, but did not attempt to point out the flaw in her argument. Perhaps she even did 'take heart' from it—the idea that good will always win out in the end. But then her smile faded.

"Only twenty years between that war and this," she sighed. "Human beings are frail of mind and will never learn. What if we _do_ win this war—and there is another, in 1968? And 1988—and on into the next millennium, world without end, amen. I recall that old story Bruce's mother told me, about his childhood in the first war. 'Tell Jem I'll be along soon to help him fight the Huns.' She thought Bruce would never have to fight, but now he is in France with the Canadian 2nd. His turn has come. My little baby will escape this war—but perhaps he will fight in the next."

"You are tired," said Cecilia. "Lay down here and I'll cover you with this afghan, and read to you for a while. I've just had a letter from cousin Leslie that I know you will enjoy. She's doing V.A.D. work in Montreal—she has three boys wild for her but she doesn't care a whit for them—it's better than a soap opera and it's five pages long. By the time I've finished, you'll be more yourself again."

Penny was asleep by the second page. Cecilia smiled at her correct diagnosis, and leaned down to kiss her shining hair and pull the afghan up to her shoulders. Outside the window, the first of the daffodils were nodding their heads along with the breeze that came up from the gulf. Cecilia smiled—a true smile—and ran out to hold congress with them.

She met Owen Ford coming up the lane. She almost didn't recognize him—how tall he'd gotten! His sandy hair had deepened in color, and his face altogether was more refined, with a deeper sense of character in it than had been there before. How handsome he was getting to be—he had inherited his mother's and his father's good looks. With a pang, Cecilia realized that Owen was not exactly the little imp she had been used to. He had changed at school.

"Owen," she said, going to meet him and holding out her hands. "I didn't know you were home."

"Only for the weekend," Owen said. He smiled—but it was not the unholy grin she was used to. Cecilia was eighteen, which would make Owen seventeen, now. Where had the time gone? Surely it _did_ have wings.

"Cis, can we walk?" said Owen, his throat working. "There is something—I think—I have to tell you."

What could he have to say to her that was grim enough to make his brows lower, thus? "Is it Gilly?" she asked, fear in her chest.

"No—no. It's—something else. Oh, Cis, I've come to make a confession."

"I was just on my way to Rainbow Valley," Cecilia said, thinking of the tall, stately irises that would be in bloom down by the little brook. "We can talk on the way, if you'll come with me."

But Owen did not say a word on the walk over. Instead, he waited until they were seated by the babbling little brook, before he began.

"I heard about what happened with you and Sid Gardiner," he said. "And Cecilia—it's my fault, and I'm sorrier about than I ever was about anything in my life. Don't—don't say a word. I want to get it all out before you holler at me.

"Cecilia—I saw you kiss Blythe on Christmas Eve. Jakie and I were coming back from the woodpile—we—we—we'd 'borrowed' one of Dad's cigars. You won't tell? Well, we snuck out to the woodpile to try it—and we snuck back—and we _saw _you. 'Bout took my breath away. But I didn't plan to tell—I didn't. I just thought it was the fault of the mistletoe, and chalked it up to something sweet. I didn't think of it again at all until I was back at school. You know Glenn Elliott goes to St. John's too? We were horsing around in the dormitory—I said—I said something about Glenn's sister. Just in jest! It's the kind of thing boy's do—don't look shocked. And it wasn't too bad. I just said I'd like to get to know her better." Owen grinned cheekily, despite his flushed cheeks, and Cecilia found herself grinning back.

"Well, Glenn started in on Trudy, and then he worked his way through everybody in the family and settled, finally, on Blythe. You know some of the boys think Blythe's a sissy because he writes poetry, and doesn't like sports, and hangs out with you girls. 'He's never had a girlfriend,' Glenn said. 'I bet he'll be a nancy like his uncle Walter.' Well, I just saw red over that, Cis. It's bad enough to say things about a man's living family without bringing his dead relatives into it. A dead man can't fight back. My head began to spin and spin—it was like I wasn't _myself_ at all.

"'Shows how much you know, Elliott,' I heard myself saying. And then I told him about the kiss. Glenn hooted and hollered—said likely you were just checking Bly's temperature—and then he said, in this snide tone, 'I wonder what Sid Gardiner would say if he knew what his girl's been up to behind his back?' And I remembered, all at once, that Glenn's mother is a Madison of the Bay Shore. I didn't think he'd actually _tell_ Sid—but when I heard about—about what happened—I knew he _had_."

Cecilia had listened to this tale with eyes that grew brighter and brighter. Owen hung his head, but peeped up at her from under his lashes. He would get it, now, for sure!

"I'm sorry, Cis," he said, "If there was anything I could do to take it back, I would."

Cecilia sat and thought for a long moment. She thought of how quickly a tower can come tumbling down, knocked by an errant hand—or breath—or word. But then—the tower does not tumble unless something is wrong with its foundation. She covered her eyes and laughed, and then she took her hands and laid them on her cousin's bright hair, as a benediction.

"Owen, I forgive you," she said easily. "What's more—I should _thank_ you. You saved me from myself. I _might_ have married Sid Gardiner if this had not happened—and think what it would mean for me. I couldn't be happy with a man who has done the things Sid has done. Even if he hadn't done them, the impetus to do them would be there, underneath. We never could have been happy. I might have realized my mistake, years into our marriage—and there would have been nothing for me to do about it, then. You didn't do wrong, honey—you did right by me, and I'm so grateful."

The words had started as just a means to make the boy feel better, but once they were out Cecilia knew them for the truth. She had her whole life ahead of her, now—with Sid she would have grown smaller and smaller until her _self_ disappeared inside somewhere. The door to her heart was opened up and joy rushed in again. She felt light and free and airy as a cloud. There was love in the world—she could still find it—there was hope, and possibility once more.

"Well, if you're glad as that, then I'll try to forgive _myself_," said Owen. "And Cis, listen up—you _might _forgive Marshall Douglas since he didn't do anything wrong by you. I went down to see him yesterday and he told me all about it—it's what convinced me finally to speak. That boy isn't fit for human consumption as he stands—he's afraid you'll be mad at him forever. You will go and speak to him, won't you?"

"I will this minute," Cecilia said and jumped up to go.

But halfway down the harbour road she stopped and pictured Marshall's face. His green eyes had snapped so ferociously the last time she had rebuffed him. What if she went to him—and he cut her dead, the way she had cut him? Oh—she deserved it—but all the same, all the same! Her soul still felt so bruised and tender and raw, despite its new inrush of happiness. Her innate shyness welled up and would not let her go a step further.

She had treated him so horribly—and she had been wrong. Marshall had kept her secret, after all. He had been a good friend to her. And she—she had treated him like dirt.

"How can he _ever_ forgive me?" she wondered. "He won't—he won't. And—it's funny—but Marshall has meant so much to me this past year. I wouldn't be able to bear it if he told me to go away.

And she turned her steps toward home again.

________________________

Una and Shirley had been invited to spend Easter at Green Gables, and once again Cecilia would not join them. Aunt Penny had not been feeling well—she had a late cold, and did not want to leave 'home.' So she would stay—and little Romy would stay with them, and the 'old married couple' could go and celebrate unencumbered. Aunt Nan and Uncle Jerry would be going away, too—and Joy, though Cecilia tried to get her to stay. But Joy wanted to show off her ring to cousin Bertha and to talk over wedding things with fresh ears. So it would just be Cecilia and Penny at Red Apple Farm for the holiday.

"Should we stay?" Una asked her sister-in-law, looking worriedly at Penny's flushed cheeks.

"Not on your life," said Penny. "Bruce didn't dump me here to be a burden on you. I won't hear of it, Una. You _must_ go."

"Oh, _please _go, Mummy," Cecilia begged, deeply excited about the opportunity to 'keep house' and to spend so much quality time with her beloved auntie. After the baby came, Aunt Penny would be too busy for chatting and dreaming, for a while. Cecilia really did see the whole affair as sort of an extended slumber party. "The baby isn't due for three weeks, so there's nothing to worry about, and besides—if anything goes wrong, we'll phone for Uncle Jem. Really, Mother—go, and have fun. We're just going to have a sweet, boring old time here."

Those words that Cecilia spoke in that minute would be repeated over and over again, in years to come—always with laughter, at how wrong they ended up being.

"Well," Una said, "It _will_ be nice to have a break from you little monsters." But she kissed her girl and drew her near when she said it. Of course it was facetious. Una was never happier than when she was being a mother to her girls.

Cecilia stood on the porch and waved her parents off, moving little Romy's hand, too. The baby laughed and gurgled. Cecilia kissed her right at the point where her fair curls broke in a golden wave over her brow.

"You're a sweet sister," she said. "I would say 'the sweetest' but that would be disrespectful to dear Susan. Romy-girl, did you meet my Susan in heaven? Did she keep you company until you came to us? One day, when you're older, I'll tell you all about our girl."

She plopped the baby in her crib for her nap and went down to make a pot of soup for Aunt Penny. Everything was homey and warm. Goodness, what a cold wind was whistling down the chimney—so sharp and biting, when it was supposed to be spring? She shivered, and went to kindle a fire in the hearth. They had not needed a fire since mid-March. A freak of the weather, Cecilia thought. And nothing more.

She could not know it, but at that very moment a severe storm was moving down from the northern territories, and bringing with it the coldest weather in April on PEI in fifty years. Soon she would begin to worry over it. But at that moment, it was only a little chill, and Cecilia went singing around her housewifely duties. How fun it was, to play at being grownup!


	12. Resurrection Morning

When Cecilia came in to take Penny's tray away, she found her aunt staring out of the window with wide, amazed eyes.

"Cecilia," she said, "Go to the window and look out and tell me: is it snowing, or have I gone round the bend at last?"

Cecilia went and peered out. "It is," she said, with wonder in her voice. "There's quite a bit on the ground already. I didn't see it because I was so absorbed in the big band programme on the radio. Snow in April; oh, Aunt Penny! How lovely—and strange—and festive! We had a green Christmas this year, but we'll have a white Easter. I'm going to bundle Romy up and take her out to play in it."

The baby was so funny in the snow, crawling around and patting at the fluff with her chubby little hands. But the wind that had been whistling down the chimney picked up and sliced with a biting edge, and after only a little while, Cecilia had to take Romy back inside.

"Goodness," said Aunt Penny, when she saw the pair of them. "You're _covered_ in stuff—is it coming down that badly out there?"

"There's about four inches and it's coming down thick," said Cecilia. "I'm going to go and make us each a cup of hot chocolate. And then I'm going to start a stew, for tomorrow. We can go outside and enjoy the 'winter wonderland'—or should I say 'spring wonderland'—and then we'll have heaps of nice things to tempt us back in. I'm going to make a loaf of bread, too—there is nothing like homebaked bread on a snowy day."

As she worked, kneading the dough and slicing the vegetables, Cecilia remembered that Mother was supposed to call when they got to Avonlea, to check in. They should have been there hours ago, but no call had come through. She hoped they hadn't met with any nasty weather. Likely Mother had forgotten—but Mother didn't forget—well, she would just call herself. Cecilia lifted the receiver and pressed it to her ear.

"Hello?" she asked. "Operator?"

But the line was dead. The wires had been pulled down in the storm.

Cecilia hung up the phone just as there came a terrible pelting on the roof. The snow had changed over to ice—already, the roads were slick and dangerous, as she would soon find out. The sound was alarming, with that howling wind, and for the first time all day, Cecilia's nerves stretched tight and snapped. Couldn't even the _weather_ behave?

There was another howl—this time not made by the wind. Cecilia raced out from the kitchen in time to find Aunt Penny stagger up from her chair, clutching her big belly.

"Cecilia Blythe!" she gasped, her face white, and her lips drawn. "Call for your Uncle Jem, please. I believe the baby plans on coming early."

Cecilia stared at her with wide, frightened eyes.

"I _can't _call," she said, in horror. "The phones are down."

______________________________

Cecilia helped Penny up the stairs and then flew back down, wondering what was to be done. She wanted to throw on her coat and start for Ingleside—surely the roads couldn't be that bad—but Aunt Penny had said, "Don't you _dare_ leave me alone, Cecilia! I'll never forgive you if you do!" What else was she to do? She paced in the hallway. Their nearest neighbor was two miles down the shore road. She could make it—but it was only Captain Josiah, and what would _he_ be able to do?

"I'll check the phones again," she said, but it was useless, the same dead air greeted her as before.

Cecilia would be ashamed of it, later, but it must be admitted that she flew to pieces at that moment. Romy was upstairs wailing, and Aunt Penny was wailing, too. So she sat down and wailed herself. What if the baby was born before she got anybody—what if it died—what if Aunt Penny died? What if they _all _died?

Her fear swamped her like a wave and she might have given over to it entirely—let it pull her under—had not a knock came on the door just then. She flew to it—opened it—maybe Mother had come home—maybe Uncle Jem had decided to drive out and see how they were…

But it was only Marshall Douglas, ice forming in his black curls. His face was closed off and unfriendly. But he was somebody, at least, and Cecilia pulled him into the house without a thought to their feud.

"Sorry to bother you," Marshall said stiffly. "But could I trouble you for a night's lodging? I came down to stay with the Will Drews' but when the storm hit, I thought I'd try to make it home. I don't think I will, after all, and there's no where else for me to go. I had a devil of a time trying to make it here."

"Marshall, _how did you get here?_" Cecilia said, taking him by the shoulders and giving him a little shake. "The roads—"

"The roads aren't fit for man nor beast," he said, with a little of his old humor returning. "Cee, I had to _crawl_ the last fifty yards. If I'd tried to walk I'd have fallen and bashed my skull in."

"Oh God—oh God." Cecilia began wringing her hands.

Now Marshall took _her_ by the shoulders. "What is wrong?" he asked. "Cecilia—what's _wrong_?"

"Aunt Penny is having her baby and there is no way to get a doctor," Cecilia said dully. "The phones are down."

"And even if they weren't, nobody could get here."

There was another long, low moan from upstairs and Cecilia grabbed her scarf and began looping it around her throat. "I'm going for uncle Jem," she said. "I don't _care_ if the roads are iced over."

Marshall caught her and pulled her back from the door.

"Are you crazy?" he said. "You'll fall and break your bones—or you'll freeze to death before you get there. Cecilia—it's up to you. You've read every medical book in your grandfather's library. Tell me—what did you read about delivering a baby?"

Cecilia took a deep breath. "When it is time for the mother to push someone must catch the baby—and then when it is born you must clean its airway and help it to breathe. And then you must deal with the umbilicus and the placenta."

Marshall did not even blanch at the words—some boys might have. "And what do you need to do those things?"

Her heart was starting to beat normally. "Lots of clean towels," she said, slowly, thinking. "And a pair of scissors—sterilized—the big ones in the kitchen would do. And some string, to tie off the umbilical cord."

Marshall was already flying around the kitchen. He put a pot of water on the stove for the scissors and found a heap of clean towels in the pantry, which Cecilia put into the oven at a low heat to disinfect. Then she went to scrub her hands at the sink. Marshall flew upstairs to retrieve the screaming Romy, and she heard him speaking to Aunt Penny in reassuring tones. When Cecilia went upstairs, she found Aunt Penny smiling through her pain.

"Marshall tells me we are about to embark on an adventure," she said, and there was faith in her eyes—faith that Cecilia _could_ do it.

"We are," said Cecilia firmly. "And it's going to be a lovely adventure—and we're going to get a new friend out of it."

____________________________________

Dawn was just beginning to touch the edges of the frozen world. Outside, the first rays of the sun were striking purple on the snow, which had drifted around Red Apple Farm almost up to the eaves. Romy was sleeping in her crib—Aunt Penny was sleeping in her bed—and in Cecilia's arms, was sleeping a tiny baby girl, with a rose of a mouth and fair wisps of curls stuck all over her small little head.

Marshall, his own curls stuck up in disarray, his eyes ringed with lack of sleep, pushed the blanket aside gently to better see the little face.

"Sweet," he said, with a boy's wonder in his voice. "She's so sweet. And small."

"She is large enough," said Cecilia, with satisfaction. "Oh, Marshall, look at her cunning little hands! Such long fingers. I can't _believe_ she's here—safe—and Aunt Penny is safe, too. There _must_ be a God. I wonder at people who say there isn't. How could I have done what I did last night without a host of heavenly angels at my shoulder?"

"I think you could do anything," said Marshall, cupping the baby's head in his hand. "Let me hold her, Cee."

Cecilia passed him the baby and he held it as naturally as if he had been doing it his whole life. "Hello, darling," he said. "Welcome to the world."

"Marshall," said Cecilia, her eyes suddenly pricking with tears. "I couldn't have done it without you. I wouldn't have been able."

He looked at her, and grinned, quizzically. "I didn't do anything."

Cecilia put her hand over his. "You _believed_ in me. And that counted for a lot." She blinked furiously against the tears that were gathering in the corners of her eyes—happy tears—grateful tears. "Aunt Penny told me I could name her, you know. Since I brought her into the world."

"And have you decided on something?"

"Yes," said Cecilia. "I am going to call her Iris—her eyes are so blue—like Romy's only darker. So dark they are almost purple. And her hair is going to be gold, like her mother's. So it fits. And for her second name, I am going to choose 'Marcia'—for you—because I couldn't have done it without you. Iris Marcia Meredith. It's a nice name, I think."

Marshall looked up at her in dismay. "But you have to have Cecilia in there," he said. "It's only fair. You did all the work."

"No," said Cecilia. "See—she is opening up her eyes—she knows her name. I can't change it, now. Oh, Marshall, I'm sorry—I know you didn't tell Sid about Blythe. I treated you so horribly and you didn't deserve it. Will you forgive me?"

"Of course I will," he said scornfully. "As if you have to ask a thing like that."

So peace and order were restored once more. Cecilia leaned her head sleepily on Marshall's shoulder. She was so—tired—and her eyes felt so scratchy, like someone had rubbed sand in them—and heavy—and—and—she was asleep. Little Iris settled her eyes closed, too, and Marshall Douglas looked at both those girls, and a veil that curtained off the future was lifted for him, and he saw all sorts of wonderful things. He must find a way to reach that picture in his mind—he must be worthy of it, somehow. He _would_ find a way.

Aunt Penny wholeheartedly approved of the name, and was in good spirits over her little mite. "Healthy, Bruce eyes, and not a horse." The ice enough melted by the afternoon so Marshall was able to go for the doctor, and Jem Blythe looked at his little niece in wonder after he had examined mother and baby. She had done everything correctly—there were lots of full-fledged doctors he knew who wouldn't have done half as well. By God, she had a talent. The girl had a talent—she held the power of life in her hands.

If the roads were cleared, the phones were not restored for nearly a week. So Una and Shirley Blythe spent the rest of the Easter weekend in blissful ignorance and were electrified when they returned home and met Marshall at the door—he had stayed on to make sure the girls were getting on all right.

"Where is Cecilia?" Una asked, helplessly.

"Oh, she's upstairs," Marshall said, "Putting 'her' baby to bed."


	13. Promises and Partings

In the late spring the apple trees around the farm burst into bloom, but for the first time Cecilia was almost insensible to their beauty. Oh, she _noticed_ the clouds of pink blossoms—she watched as the wind swirled the petals from branch to ground, making the wide green lawn into a carpet of sweetness—she slept with her window open so that the gorgeous scent could swirl into her bedroom with the night breeze, perfuming her dreams. But these things took a back burner to what was forefront in her mind: that Blythe had had his eighteenth birthday in the beginning of May, and had joined up the very next day.

She had dreaded this for so long—and now the hour had 'come round at last.' Blythe went into town on 8 May and returned the next day in khaki, bearing the insignia of the Canadian 2nd Infantry on his lapel. He had given Cecilia a pin of a maple leaf crossed with rifles, the emblem of the North Shore regiment, and she wore it, for the most part, proudly. But sometimes it lay like a leaden weight on her breast, and weighed down every step she took. She would have liked to have been proud of Blythe, as she was of Gilly and Walt when they had gone. But every time pride crept up in her heart, it was swamped by a wave of desolation. He would be gone—and he might never come back.

But underneath everything was a queer relief. Why? Perhaps it had something to do with the memory of the kiss they had shared—that awful, crawly _wrong_ feeling—and the look in Blythe's eyes that let her know there was something he wanted to tell her—would tell her, before he went. She arranged it so that they were never alone, because she did not know if she could give him the answer that he so badly wanted—and she did not want to hurt him before he must leave her. It was not hard to do. Everybody wanted to be around Blythe in that last week he had before he shipped to Gagetown for training. Nan fairly tied him to her apron string. Jerry Meredith's sermons suffered for the only time in his career because he put them aside to accompany his boy on long rambles through their old haunts. Joy hardly slept because she wanted to make each hour before Blythe's going _last_. So Cecilia found herself within a crowd of people whenever she went to him, and she was glad for it.

But even in a clan large as theirs, the condition of aloneness could not be entirely avoided. The day before Blythe was to go, Cecilia sat out on the verandah with baby Iris. It amazed her how the baby grew and changed every day. She was a month old, now, and just starting to take notice of her surroundings. Cecilia studied her face as Iris studied her little, star-like hand.

"You're so delicious," she told her littlest cousin. "I could eat you up. Iris—has your proud papa gotten the snapshots I sent him of you yet, do you think? I hope he has. Except for those big blue eyes you are the picture of your mama—and he'll like that. Do you know, honey-pie, that I _saw_ your parents fall in love? I even think I might have had something to do with bringing them together. Oh, I'm _glad_ I did, when you are the result! We're going to be good friends always, Iris, you and I."

Cecilia cuddled the baby to her breast. The sun sparkled on Iris's curls, and made Cecilia's night-wing hair as glossy as obsidian. The contrast between them was so striking—they made such a pretty picture—that Blythe Meredith, who was coming up the lane, felt his breath snatched away by the sight. There was something so—natural—about the sight of Cecilia with a child. He, like Marshall Douglas, could not help thinking the way she looked then boded very well for his future. He would carry that picture to sun-baked Africa—war-torn France—and with him for the rest of his life. It was the moment he first began to love Cecilia in earnest. Oh, she had always been sweet to him before—but at that moment, he knew that he loved her, loved her beyond all other earthly things.

But he only sat down beside her then as companionably as he had, always, before. There was a time and place for such things—and it was not now. "How is our girl today?" he asked. "Little Iris—you dear thing!"

"She is more beautiful and more wonderful with every passing hour," Cecilia laughed. "But oh—I'm biased. I feel partly responsible for her, and so of course I find her wonderful beyond all things. But I think anybody would admit, though, that she is very lovely—even an objective observer would have to."

Blythe smiled. "Come for a walk with me, Cecilia? I've a hankering for Rainbow Valley today. I can't believe I'll be leaving the old place so soon." He did not say what they were thinking—that it was possible that he might never see it again—but they _were_ thinking it, the both of them, and it was quite possibly the only reason Cecilia agreed to go with him. She laid off her little fear of what might _happen_ if she went, and stood.

"I'll just lay her in her cradle," she said, "And be right down."

It was a long walk to Rainbow Valley from Four Winds. If they went cross-lots it was still over two miles, but they were beautiful miles, full of gorgeous scenery. Was there such a thing as springtime in other parts of the world? Surely there must be—but it could not be spring as it was _here_. The colors were so vibrant—the air so spiced with salt and blossom—the sky so wide and never-ending. Cecilia forgot that she had ever felt uncomfortable with Blythe. For a moment they were just the old friends they had always been.

"I can't believe you won't let us have a party for you before you go," she said. "And that you won't let anybody go with you to the station tomorrow. It is so mean, Blythe."

"There's nothing beautiful about a goodbye," he said. "So I mean to have as few of them as I can."

"Oh, there is something nice about a parting—when you know you know will see the person again," she chided him. "If you will only be away from the one you love a short while it is such a sweet little pretense—you get to have all the fun and drama with no real risk. Blythe—you _will_ be careful over there—won't you?"

"I mean to be," he said, stopping by an old gate that grew out of a clump of bracken. It was a wayward little gate—it once had led to Mr. Allan Crawford's south pasture—but now it was so overgrown it led to nowhere at all. Cecilia remembered once that her grandmother had said a gate was a sign of promise, and allurement. Perhaps Blythe remembered it, too, and that is why he took her little white hand, and spoke those words that had been lying on his mind for many months.

"Cecilia," he said, looking down, his fair lashes hiding his gray eyes. "I'll be careful—of course—I wouldn't hurt Mother or Joy or Dad by letting something happen to me. But darling—it would be so much easier to take care of myself if I knew there was something special for me to come back to. And that is—it is your love, Cecilia. Not just _cousinly_ love—but another kind entirely. Do you know the kind of feeling I am speaking of? And do you think you could ever feel it for me?"

He lifted his eyes and looked at her directly, and Cecilia felt her heart beat hard. _Well_? Blythe's eyes asked her, and she must answer. But she did not know quite what to say.

"It is so soon since Sid," she stammered. "It is _too_ soon, Blythe. My heart is still healing from the last time. If you asked me a year from now—perhaps I could give you another answer."

"I don't have a year," he reminded her, a little bitterly. It was the first bitterness he had shown toward his leaving. "I don't have a _day_. It's cruel—and selfish—but I love you, darling. I want to come home to you—and marry you—it can be done. Look at all the Darks and Penhallows of Rose River. They're all cousins—some are even double cousins, as we are. It is not unheard of. And we could be so happy. We would find a place somewhere—somewhere near the sea. I could write my poems, and you could—you could—I'd _let _you be a doctor, Cecilia, if it means so much to you. We could be very happy, honey. I can't go—I can't—unless you give me an answer one way or another. I must know before I go: do you think you could ever learn to care for me in _that _way?"

She looked at him, searchingly. Should she give him an honest answer, or the one he wanted so desperately to hear? True friends were always honest with each other. But how could she send him away with that shroud of rejection over him? She thought, suddenly, that it was very unfair of Blythe to ask her this, to ask her _now_. She must either hurt him—and maybe lose him—or lie to him—and maybe never learn to live that lie. He should not have asked her, but he had. And now she must think of what to tell him.

She settled somewhere in the middle, between honesty and kindness. "I think, Blythe," she said slowly. "That I _can't_ love you, now. I can't love anyone, now. My heart has been hurt—and I must give it time to scar over. Until it does, I can't love anybody that way. But the picture you paint is a wonderful one. And I do love you enough so that it might, one day, grow into that sort of love. If I tend it—and nurture it—it might blossom. And I'll _try _to love you that way, darling. I think it would be very sweet if I could. I'll put my whole heart and soul into trying."

Blythe studied her earnest little face. It was not exactly the answer he wanted, but it was not the worst. She had given him, at least, a little hope. It was something he could carry in his heart. He did not sigh; he threw his shoulders back and held his head high.

"You'll try—and I'll be trying, too," he vowed. "Cecilia—I mean to have you—and I'm going to do my damnedest to win you, in the end."

He did not ask if he could kiss her. He wanted to—but he did not want to pressure her. He thought it very possible she might recoil—or change her mind—and he could not bear that, if she did. And so they had a quiet half-hour in Rainbow Valley and then Blythe had to leave, to go to prayer meeting with his parents and sister. He did not want to go—but he had promised—still, the only prayer in his heart was on its way to being answered. He walked Cecilia back to Red Apple Farm. They lingered at the gate in the deepening twilight, reluctant to part. For who knew when they might meet again?

"I can't believe this is goodbye," Cecilia laughed, but her eyes looked bruised with pain.

Blythe smiled. "It won't be, then. We won't have a goodbye between us. I'm going to walk down the lane—but I am going to tell myself I'll be back tomorrow—and you tell yourself I will be, too. So long, then, Cecilia—I'll be seeing you."

"Oh, Blythe," Cecilia said, with a sudden passion. "I meant what I said. I will try. I _will_. It would be so sweet, to love you. I'll try my very best to do it."

He only kissed her hand, and then he started down the lane. She stood where she was, in the yard, and watched him go. When Blythe reached the top of the hill he stopped and looked back before he went around the bend. Down in the valley he saw Red Apple Farm, with her orchards and fields spread out about her. A white house—with a red roof—the red tilled earth, and pink blossoms and green fields and the blue sliver of sea. And a dear little black-haired longshore lass, lifting her hand to him in a farewell that was not a farewell but a gesture of faith—and promise—and love, of a sort.

"I shall see it so in my dreams," he said, and then turned around the bend and walked till he was out of sight.

_______________________________

Early, early in the morning Cecilia woke and climbed from bed. She wound her wrap over her shoulders and went to sit in the window. She looked out over the orchard. The sun was only just coming up. She knew that she must be the only person awake in the house—it felt like she was the only person awake in the world. But she had a tryst to keep, and must keep it. The sky was pearly-gray, and the waves were whitecapped. Would it come? Had she missed it? The trees were tossing their heads. _Wait—wait_. Then it came: the long, low whistle of a train. Blythe was leaving today on the 7:05 out of Lowbridge. It was Blythe's train—he was going—he was going.

The whistle hung in the air, a shimmering thing—the hills caught it and threw it back. For one moment Cecilia felt the waves of sound roll through her body, through her heart. Then as suddenly as it had come, it faded. Blythe had gone.

"Goodbye," she whispered. It _was_ goodbye, after all. It always came, no matter how you tried to hold it off.


	14. Commencement

Cecilia graduated that June. She finished out her last year at the Glen St. Mary high school with high honors, and despite her troubles with economics, was made the class valedictorian, and asked to give a speech at the commencement ceremony. Her small, shy spirit quailed at that—but Mother and Dad were so proud—and Aunt Penny—she must not let them down. She took to her room at sat at the little white-painted desk and worked out her address.

But everything she wrote seemed so flat and insipid, next to the great cares that shook the world. Greece surrendered to the Nazis—there was heavy bombing of English cities. The Allies stuck back, with a mighty blitz of their own to Hamburg, but the Germans would not be kept down. They sunk the _Hood_—the pride of the British Navy—but the Brits struck back, bringing down the _Bismarck_, that terror of the high seas. Still, it was not enough—not enough. Hitler set his sights on the Soviet Union, and began his siege of that vast white land.

Cecilia sat back and studied her paper, studded with bits of eraser where she had attacked and obliterated whole lines and paragraphs. How—stupid—her words looked. Of course they should 'always apply themselves to the side of right.' Such a thing had been said so many times it meant almost nothing anymore. And this: _let us always strive to learn, though our formal educations may be over_. The sentiment was right, but the words were bland—colorless—'macanaccady,' as Norman Douglas would say!

She despaired. She must get up and read these dull platitudes out and people would yawn, or shuffle their papers in their laps, and Mr. Cooper Flagg would doze off and begin to snore as he always did at these kinds of events. She might gather her wits and speak—but it Mr. Flagg began to snore, she would _not_ be able to keep on. She would _have_ to run away—and disgrace herself—and her family. What was she to do?

Likely she would have stood up and read her speech without event—for Cecilia, as she had shown the night of little Iris's birth—was splendid under pressure. But as it happened, she did not need to. The night before commencement, a letter came from Blythe, with a poem he had written her for the very occasion of her graduation. It was so dear and heart-stirring that Cecilia decided she would read it for her address. Why not? After so many lectures and lessons of the past year, it would be a welcome bit of relief. Just the beautiful words—and the sentiments behind them—it was exactly the right thing.

"Thank you, Blythe," she murmured, touching her lips to the page in a way she had not been able to do with his lips. He somehow always knew the right thing.

But as Cecilia mounted the dais in the yard of the school the next day, sweating under her black cap and gown in the high sun, she was not sure it was the right thing, after all. Everyone was looking at her so—_expectantly_. She listened while Principal Elliott extolled her accomplishments—straight A's—secretary of the Junior Red Cross—captain of the debating team—the sole female member of the chemistry club—and she quailed in the pretty red slippers Aunt Rilla had gotten her to wear that day. When Principal Elliott had finished they all clapped and she took her place at the podium, looking out across the sea of faces. These people, her neighbors, her countrymen, with their plain, sunburned faces and small town ways—they all wanted her to say something of substance, not just read off some silly, frilly poetry.

But then Cecilia Blythe remembered her birthright—poetry _was_ a thing of substance—and nobody was too plain or ordinary to appreciate beauty.

"I want to read to you something sent to me by my cousin Blythe Meredith," she began, her voice sounding so high and tinny through the microphone. "_Private_ Blythe Meredith—he is with the North Shore regiment—and he expects to ship over to France end of the month. He sent me this poem, and I want to share it with you. We have had a hard year, Class of '41." Cecilia looked up from her paper long enough to pick out certain faces in the crowd. There were the two remaining Crawford triplets, Jim and Paige, whose brother Donny had been killed at Hong Kong earlier in the year. Donny would have graduated this year, with them. They were holding each other's hands, their faces very white under their caps.

"We have lost loved ones." She looked to Betty Pryor and Marjorie Dodds, sitting on opposite sides of the aisle from one another. They had been best friends until Betty had quarreled with Marjie over Tommy MacAllister, who was in khaki. They never spoke, now, and they each seemed so lost without the other. "We have had good friends grow away from us."

Cecilia's eyes found Marty Elliott, hunched in the back row. He had wanted to join up, but wasn't fit to fight because he was deaf in one ear. He felt very badly over it, since his three brothers had gone. "We have lost our _ideals_, and been disappointed with our dreams. But I think it will do us all a world of good to remember what it is we are fighting for—and what we might look forward to in the years when the peace is won."

She looked down at her paper again and began to read Blythe's words.

**Friends o' mine, in the years oncoming**  
**I wish you a little time for play,**  
**And an hour to dream in the eerie gloaming**  
**After the clamorous day.**  
**(And the moon like a pearl from an Indian shore**  
**To hang for a lantern above your door.)**

Nobody hissed or jeered, and so her thin little voice gained strength as she went into the next stanzas.

**A little house with friendly rafters,**  
**And some one in it to ****_need _****you there,**  
**Wine of romance and wholesome laughters**  
**With a comrade or two to share.**  
**(And some secret spot of your very own**  
**Whenever you want to cry alone.)**

Cecilia sought out the boys in the crowd when she read the next lines. So many of them would be in uniform before the year was out—fighting, and dying, under foreign stars. She would do what she could to help them be warm and well-fed and –armed, but she wanted also to give them a picture of this beautiful place they came from, that they could carry with them.

**I wish you a garden on fire with roses,**  
**Columbines planted for your delight,**  
**Scent of mint in its shadowy closes,**  
**Clean, gay winds at night.**  
**(Some nights for sleeping and some to ride**  
**With the broomstick witches far and wide.)**

Her mouth quirked up at the next lines. Shirley and Una saw it and felt guilty over the fact that they did not have the money to send Cecilia away to Redmond that year. But Cecilia was not feeling sorry for herself.

**A goodly crop of figs to gather,**  
**With a thistle or two to prick and sting;**  
**Since a harvesting too harmless is rather**  
**An unadventurous thing.**  
**(And now and then, spite of reason or rule,**  
**The chance to be a bit of a fool.)**

She would keep up with her work, regardless of whether she did it in a classroom or laboratory, or right at home, at her white-painted desk. And it would be adventurous enough, with all the thistles and stings of inconvenience. But still: she would find a way. She would have her harvest, sometime.

There was not a dry eye in the crowd as she read the last verse. Those dear, plain, honest hopes were what every parent in attendance wished for his sons and daughters. Sweet days, untrammeled, unworried nights, gay times and strength for the times when sorrow came. Blythe Meredith's poem would ring in their ears, so that most of the parents would want a copy, and the school would comply with their request, printing it up and sending it out—Blythe's first publication. How Cecilia would thrill over it, when it made its way to the Charlottetown papers—to a magazine in New York—when she heard that it was read and repeated at commencements and rallies—when a United States Senator recited it on the radio to the troops overseas. But now, she only was thinking of her friends, and family, and all the faces before her. She really wished all good things for them, and her little voice rang with sincerity and hope as she read off the last lines.

**I wish you a thirst that can never be sated**  
**For all the loveliness earth can yield,**  
**Slim, cool birches whitely mated,**  
**Dawn on an April field.**  
**(And the knowledge that each night shall pass away**

**And bring us the gift of another bright day.)**

Cecilia looked up and through tears, found her parents in the crowd, her aunts, her uncles, her cousins. Grandmother and Grandfather Blythe looked pleased and proud—Grandma and Grandpa Meredith were beaming. And far away at the back of all her classmates stood a tall, dark-haired boy, whose snapping green eyes should could see all the way up where she stood. It was he who started the clapping—put his fingers in his mouth and whistled his approval long and loud.

"To the class of 1941," Cecilia cried, over the cheering and applause. "Good work—good luck—and may God bless each one of us!"

_______________________

A/N: the poem is by LMM, except for the last couplet, which is by yours truly (The original verse did NOT work with the theme of this chapter. I hope she won't mind!)


	15. I'll Walk Alone

Spring melted into summer melted into autumn. Slowly, the old way of life changed, and changed irrevocably, so that afterward Cecilia would hardly remember the slow, sweet days of before the war. Or else she would remember them, but they would be like something out of a dream. Had living ever been so gentle, and easy, as that? She would mourn for it, but in years hence she would think that she preferred this hard-won happiness to the kind that was given without cause, or form. She would look at the world the way she looked at the beautiful rock coves and cliffs along the shore. Their crags and crannies had been made and shaped by the ravages of time and water.

So, too, would her life come to be shaped by pain and waiting and work.

She was borne along by a tide of war news. When Greece followed Yugoslavia and fell to the Nazi troops, she was crushed under the weight of worry. Once, she had never thought of Greece at all—now it seemed amazing that she had never noted its importance. That fabled land of myth—the birthplace of rational thought—it seemed of utmost important that it belong to the side of right. She was depressed and anxious until the British began a counter-attack in Egypt and then her eyes burned in her face with a passionate intensity. They must triumph—they must—what was Greece, compared with Egypt?

She waited to hear the news of each new battle—she waited for the boys to write, especially Blythe. He went overseas in June, and her first letter from him came in August. He was training in England, now, and it was inconceivable to Cecilia that he should be so far away from her. When she was getting up in the morning it was already lunchtime for him; when she was sitting down to supper at her table he was sleeping in his barracks. When she went to bed, he was getting up for exercises. There was no feeling anymore that their lives even overlapped, when once they had been in lock-step.

The only time she felt close to him was when he wrote. There, in his letters, he was still the same old Blythe. And yet—they had not often been separated for long enough to write one another regularly, so that was new, too. Blythe was a wonderful writer, and to get a letter from him was a strange, sweet thing. It was so easy to bare your soul in a letter—much easier than it was, sometimes, in person.

He sent a snapshot of himself—a funny one, in the 'Company F Follies.' Blythe wore a funny sailor hat and was giving a stern salute. But even his appearance had changed. His hair was shorn so short, and the planes of his face stood out, more. What high cheekbones he had! She had never noticed. And he must have spent time out in the sun because of the little lines that were starting to radiate out from the corners of his eyes. He had dropped weight and gained muscle in his time at the training camp, and Cecilia was surprised to find that tall, slim boy-Blythe of days of yore, round of cheek and long of lash, looked suddenly like a man. A handsome man, if she had to be honest. She wondered if the British girls made a fuss over him.

She began to wonder if she could, possibly, ever love him like she had promised she would try to.

But one could not have a letter from Blythe every day, and in the meantime there was much work to be done. Cecilia organized a scrap drive with the Junior Reds and spent hours pulling a red wagon up and down the hill, collecting pie plates and tin cans and even, in the case of Mrs. Gordon Davis, a pair of old iron corset stays. She knitted lumpy mittens for the ditty bags that they were putting together for the sailors and coast guard. Every penny she earned from her Victory Garden or from her work on the farm she put toward war bonds, or cartons of cigarettes to send to the soldiers. Several families of evacuees were on their way across the Atlantic, and would be taken in by Glen families. Captain Josiah was taking a passel of little boys to stay with him at the light and the poor little things had nothing, had lost everything in the blitz. So Cecilia and Una made up several pairs of trousers and a heap of flannel shirts for them to wear, so that they should have something.

The pile of books on Cecilia's desk grew alarmingly in size. Grandfather and Uncle Jem sent her another to add, every week, but she rarely opened any of them. Besides her war work she had her ordinary farm chores to tend to, and Mother and Aunt Penny could not do everything for Romy and wee Iris themselves. But Una looked worryingly at those books every time she passed her daughter's room and peeped in. But Cecilia shook her head of curls when Una suggested that she take an hour off to study.

"There's too much to be done, Mother, that I don't dare stop or I'll forget something."

But Una was not convinced. In September, a third of Cecilia's graduating class had gone off to Redmond college, and she knew the girl must have some small bitter resentment that she was not going, too. Una thought of her daughter in her cap and gown, standing up on the dais, addressing her class. She knew what it was to feel overlooked and left out, and despite Cecilia's sweetness, and her laughter, she knew that the girl must feel it, too.

_____________________________

In October cousin Leslie Meredith came to visit. Harum-scarum Leslie of the old days had rounded out into a siren of golden hair and flashing, sea-blue eyes. When Anne Blythe saw her, she sucked in a sharp breath—here was the very picture of dear Leslie West—how Leslie would have looked at eighteen if no tragedy had ever entered into her life. Leslie the Second was a laughing, madcap, saucy girl, and there was no mystery as to why she had been sent to the Glen from Montreal. The official story was that Leslie missed her Glen family—and she _did_—but there was another aspect that she lost no time in bandying around.

"It's because of Richard Kenyon," she said, tossing her golden curls. "Mumsy and Dads don't like him—never had. His family is filthy rich, and they suspect that's the only reason I want him. They want to _save_ me from myself. Well, I don't need saving, Cecilia! Dickie's a blast, and we were going to run away together and be married. We would have _made_ it, too, if old Granny K hadn't found us out and alerted the authorities. It even made it into the papers—'Shipping Heir Elopement Thwarted'—the society pages were abuzz for weeks. He was so upset—he went right out and joined up. He'll probably be killed, and then Mumsy will have to crawl on her knees to beg my forgiveness. He's the only man for me. I'll never love another."

"But if your parents don't like him, Leslie, he can't be the right man for you," said Cecilia seriously, good girl that she was.

"Oh, _piffle_," said Leslie. "Dick is rich—and handsome—and bad. Of course he's the man for me. Mums would have me married to a mutton if she could, and then I'd die of boredom. No sheep for me, thanks all the same. Well, my heart is broken and I expect it will be until I die."

But if Leslie's heart was broken, it didn't show outwardly. She flirted madly with ever boy she came across, including old Carter Flagg. But Leslie's favorite of all was Marshall.

"I like him," she said, her blue eyes dancing. "He's a nice boy—so rosy and curled—but he looks like he could be bad if he wanted to."

"You mustn't string him along, Les, darling," said Cecilia, but her words were curt. "He's only a boy, and he'll take you seriously, and break his heart over you."

"And we wouldn't want Marshall breaking his heart over anybody, would we?" said Leslie, with a knowing raise of her eyebrow. There were aspects to her cousin's friendship with 'little' Marshall Douglas that did not escape her all-seeing eyes. But Cecilia only looked blank. Of course she didn't want her little pal getting his heart broken. He was her _friend_.

Despite her callous ways toward the men, Leslie brought a breath of fresh air wherever she went. She was a 'glamour girl'—but she was also Carl Meredith's child. She was not averse to a little hard work, when it was required. Every day was a party with Leslie. She sang big band songs while she churned, and seemed to know of every event or happening before anybody else. She went to every dance, and had so many heaps of friends always around Red Apple Farm that Cecilia quite forgot to be lonely. How could she be, with a cousin like Leslie?

_______________________________

Christmas that year was a mixed affair. On 7 December, the United States entered the war, and the grownups were jubilant. They remembered how the tide of the first war had changed once the States had thrown themselves into the fray. Aunt Rilla sat down at the piano and played and sang:

_Send the word, send the word,  
Over There  
That the Yanks are coming,  
The Yanks are coming,  
The drums rum tumming everywhere!_

Leslie surprised them all by breaking out into the American national anthem. She knew all the words and they were quite amazed at her.

"Dickie's mother is from Michigan," she confided to Cecilia, as they walked home. "So of course I had to learn it."

So things went swimmingly for a few weeks, but only days before Christmas came word that Walt had been shot in a skirmish near El-Aghelia, and all their happiness drained away. It was only a minor wound—but to Faith Blythe, nothing could be 'minor' where her little boy was concerned. Her boy had been hurt—but it was not enough to keep him out of the fighting for long. He must go back—go back—and next time he could be killed. For the first time since 1939, her spirit dimmed and flickered.

But on New Year's Eve, Aunt Rilla had a telegram that brightened them up. Jims Anderson—war-baby Jims—had gone and married Lois Grant, daughter of Gertrude. They had known each other all their lives, but had fallen out of touch until Lolo had gone overseas with the Women's Air Corps and their paths had crossed again.

"Imagine that," smiled Rilla. "Me and Miss Oliver are finally 'sisters' of a sort. Dear Lolo is a darling girl, and she's just the right fit for my sunny little Jims. Oh, I wish them all the happiness in the world."

"Cousin" Jims had always been of a different generation than Cecilia and her crew, but they loved him like a big brother, and after the scare with Walt they clung to any happy news, now.

"It's so romantic," Cecilia breathed to herself, as she walked home from the New Year's Eve dance at the light. It had been a small, merry homespun affair, and she had been gooseberry for most of it, dancing with the little British evacuees. There were not so many boys to go around, anymore, and the ones that were left had quickly paired off. Owen, home for the holidays, walked with Daisy Drew, and shy cousin Jake with her sister Flora. Trudy had her hand in Roger Elliott's pink fat one, and her cheeks were flushed from the attention he was paying her. Leslie walked up ahead with Marshall, and Cecilia occasionally heard his laugh ringing out through the still cold night, and something in her felt very left out at the sound of it. Cecilia sighed—a little grey cloud in the frosty air. Yes, the world seemed very full of romance—for everyone but her. She thought of the words of the song she had heard for the first time that night, Dinah Shore singing,

_I'll walk alone_

_Because to tell you the truth I'll be lonely…_

She thought of Blythe, so far away—half a world away. If he were _here_, at least, she would not have to walk alone.


	16. A Sense of Adventure

Cecilia wended her way home from the Junior Reds meeting one evening early in spring of 1942. The meeting had been held at Douglas's store—and Leslie had stayed behind to chat with Marshall and Cathy. The sight of her coiling Marshall's dark curls around her fingers, so flirtatiously, had not quite set right with Cecilia, so when Cathy had asked her to stay she had refused, almost without planning to. She took her time gathering up her things, and set out for home in the purple twilight. They had worked all night planning a fundraiser dinner for the North Shore Rifles—Blythe's regiment—that was in desperate need of supplies. The little group of girls had quarreled over the minutia of the event—where to hold it, what to serve, what kind of entertainment to have. They had not gotten anything much accomplished, and Ethel Drew, a pock-faced, unpleasant girl, had that Cecilia ask Sid if they could use Silver Bush, which was famed for its big dining room and sloping law.

"Oh—but you and Sid Gardiner aren't _together_ anymore," Ethel had said, raising a hand to her lips in mock remembrance. As if she hadn't 'remembered' that all along!

Cecilia felt uneasy as she walked home. She thought of Sid and May, married for almost a year, now. She was glad, in a way she hadn't been this time last year, that it was not _she_ who was married to Sid, but all the same. Life felt very flat, of late. She would be nineteen in June—and what had she accomplished? She was no closer to her dream of medical school than she had been—further away, in fact. She had no sweetheart, no lover, no romance to give a tang to these long days. She still had not cracked any one of the textbooks that were collecting dust on her desk.

"What is life _for_?" she asked the stars, which were coming out, big and low-hanging overhead.

As she rounded the curve of the shore road toward home, she came face-to-face with Nellie Douglas—at least, she realized it was Nellie Douglas after a moment. Cecilia almost did not recognize her, she looked so sparkling, so—_pretty_. Her pale curls were windblown and her cheeks flushed pink with happiness.

"Oh, Cecilia," she said, shyness overcoming her, but keeping her smile—a soft, secret one. "There was a Reds' meeting tonight—and I forgot."

"You didn't miss much," said Cecilia unhappily. "Leslie listed every man in the Glen who's 'cute' and Ethel Drew insulted me. Not our finest hour, really. But it would have been nice if you were there, for moral support, at least. You have such a way of looking down your nose at the Drews, Nell—I wish I could learn it. I'm afraid I grew flustered when Ethel cut me—and I'm not half so shy as you. How _do_ you do it?"

"I can do it with the Drews because they aren't worth anything but contempt," said Nellie. "Cecilia—might I come in with you? I'll make us up a cup of hot chocolate—if you think Aunt Una wouldn't mind—and there is something I'd like to discuss with you."

Cecilia led the way into the kitchen. Mother and Aunt Penny had taken the babies up to Ingleside at Grandmother's request, and Shirley was at a civilian defense meeting at the Upper Glen. So the girls had the whole house to themselves, and Nellie tied one of Cecilia's aprons on, and set about making the hot chocolate she had promised.

When the girls were sitting at the table with their steaming mugs, Nellie reached into her blouse and drew out a letter that she had been wearing over her heart. She slid it over to the table, and Cecilia took it, and unfolded it.

"Why, it's from Walt!" she said, recognizing the handwriting at once. "Nellie—I didn't know you and Walt were writing to one another."

"We hadn't been, until last month," Nellie said, shining. "When he was hurt, I couldn't help but write to him. Just a short note—saying I hope he got better, soon—and he didn't write back for weeks, so I thought he must not have gotten it, or that he didn't want to write to me. But then he _did_ write back—just when I was giving up hope that he ever would. And now—he writes me every day, nearly. I bring them to the orchard and read them here; this was the last place we walked together, before he went. I know it sounds—silly—but…"

"It isn't silly at all." Cecilia shook her head emphatically. "I think it's wonderful. And does Walt—seem to—have his feelings for you…?"

Now Nellie shook her hand, looking a little foolish. "He is as much in love with Cathy than ever," she confessed. "Or else—he still _thinks_ he is. Half of what he writes has something to do with her, though he never quite mentions her name. He just asks how all the 'home folks' are—but I know what he means. But the other half of what he writes, Cecilia—well, we are getting to know each other in a way we never did before. If there is any good thing to come of this war, it will be victory, but perhaps this will be a _little_ good thing. I finally have some hope that maybe, one day…well. Likely I'm just being silly."

"Don't say that, Nellie," Cecilia begged her. "You're always casting yourself down as 'silly' or 'unimportant,' and you are not silly, and you _are _important to a very good many people—including me."

Nellie tilted her chin up at the words, and smiled. "I'm not silly—and I'm important to _myself_. I suppose—I just sort of got in the habit of being—the one that doesn't count. It's not easy being Cathy's sister, you know. She is so beautiful, and vivacious. Sometimes I think that mother and father must be disappointed they didn't get two of _her_. Oh, Cecilia—if only Cathy would _stop_ writing to Walt! She doesn't love him—but she writes him, because she's like that—she's friendly, and she does love him that way. But I think as long as she is in his world, he can't see me. She's like the sun—and I'm a shadow."

"Oh," Cecilia laughed. "I was thinking the same thing about Leslie a quarter of an hour ago. I love Leslie—everybody loves her—she is so gorgeous and full of fun."

"Leslie is a dear, but she shouldn't be," Nellie said, throwing up her hands. "She is gossipy—and she is frivolous—and I believe she would be _bad_ if she thought she could get away with it. But do you know, Cecilia—I believe sometimes that for all Leslie's fun and glamour, girls like you and I are the ones who will live the richer lives. We listen—and love—and throw our whole hearts into loving and tending. It's nice to have people who are like roses—like Cathy and Leslie—but they couldn't grow if there weren't people like us, to do the tending. Well, I should be thinking about getting back. Mother asked me to go over and sit with Mrs. Alec Davis tonight."

"Don't you hate her?" Cecilia said, shrinking at the very thought of old, sharp-tongued Kitty Alec.

"Not hate—not _exactly_," said Nellie, tucking her letter back into her blouse. She leaned down to get her coat and a bright printed flyer slipped from her skirt pocket to the floor. Cecilia leaned down to pick it up.

"The First Aid Nurses Yeomanry," she read, from the paper. "Oh, Nellie—what is this? Are you thinking of joining up, darling?"

"I was," Nellie admitted. "Just after Walt got hurt. I thought—I had a little romantic dream—that it would be nice to be able to help him—or boys _like_ him. But Mother couldn't spare me from the store, and after all: I don't think nursing is for me. I don't think I could stand the sight of blood, and gore—and death."

Cecilia looked at the girl drawn onto the brochure—she wore a striped dress and a paper cap, and she had a badge pinned to her shoulder with a Red Cross and the words 'Princess's Royal Volunteer Corps.'

"Nellie, may I keep this?" she asked suddenly, ambition like a flame suddenly flaring up in her chest. She almost didn't recognize it—it had been so long since she had felt it. All at once her horizons opened up. Perhaps—perhaps she could have this thing she wanted for herself.

"Yes, you may keep it," Nellie said, looking at the black-haired girl who had become something of a sister to her, in recent years. More so, she thought sometimes, than even Cathy was. For Cecilia was the sister of her heart, and they understood each other, since the same sweet grace and quietude flowed through their veins.

"But I will be sorry to lose you," Nellie murmured to the stars as she walked home. For of course there was no doubt in her mind that Cecilia _would_ end up going.

____________________________

At the end of April, Cecilia sat down with her parents and told them that she was thinking of joining up. Shirley and Una met this announcement with as much surprise as if Cecilia had declared she was thinking of going to the moon to live. But Cecilia was ready for their questions, and had answers; she had written to the Corps for more information and parried their doubts with reassurances. She would do a short training course in Toronto, and then she would go overseas to serve in a hospital in England. She wouldn't be paid, but she could earn valuable experience as a nurse. She had written to the dean of Redmond College, who had agreed to accept her two years experience in lieu of two years of coursework.

"And so I could find a way to go to college that way—and do some good, fight a small part of the big fight for myself."

"But you are so young," said Una, but what she was really saying was, "You are so dear to me."

"Not so very young," said Cecilia. "Aunt Faith wasn't much older than me when she went overseas in the first war, mother."

"You have your duties here to think of," said Shirley, but _he_ was saying, "I cannot let you go."

Cecilia dimpled, prettily. "Red Apple Farm won't suffer for manpower," she said gently. "And the Junior Reds don't need me. This could be my only way to ever get to college, Dad. I'll probably never make it to medical school. But I think I could be a good nurse, and I feel I must do it—the same way you knew you would be a farmer—and the same way Uncle Jerry felt a calling to the ministry. I—I don't need your permission, exactly—I'm eighteen, and I could go if I wanted to. But I want this to be a beautiful thing—not something I do in rebellion. So I would like to have your permission, nonetheless."

Una and Shirley Blythe spent a string of sleepless nights talking it over, and finally, at the end of a week's time, gave their answer. Cecilia could go—but only after her nineteenth birthday in June. They could not have her going right away—they needed a bit more time with their girl. For they both knew that it would not be the same sweet Cecilia who came back, when the war was ended. She might still be sweet, but she would have changed—grown up—she would not be their little girl anymore. She wasn't, exactly, now—but now they could still pretend she was.

So Cecilia went to Toronto and signed up for the First Aid Nurses' Yeomanry, and the family was stunned by her actions. None of their other girls had gone, or thought of going. Out of all of them, they would not have suspected Cecilia would be the one to go. Grandfather Blythe was pleased and proud—Uncle Jem shook his head with a certainty that it was the right thing—Aunt Faith shone with pride, and had long talks with Cecilia about her own time as a V.A.D. more than twenty years before.

Only two people were upset at her decision—Blythe and Joy. Blythe wrote in his letters home that he thought she was making a mistake, and Joy was tearful with mingled jealousy and fear.

"How can you think of leaving?" she asked, her gray eyes white with alarm. "How will I get through these long years without you?"

"I must go, Joy," Cecilia said. "I _have_ to. It's the same way Blythe felt when he knew he must go—and Jacob. Can't you be happy for me, darling? Can't you send me off as nicely and bravely as you did them?"

"You might be hurt or killed," Joy said. "Nurses have."

Cecilia put her little paw in Joy's. "You could come, too," she said, seeing that as much as Joy might miss her, there was a left-out sort of feeling there, too.

Joy pulled her hand away. "Blythe is overseas already and he might never come back," she said bluntly. "If I were hurt or killed, too, then Mother and Father wouldn't have any children left. I couldn't go, Cecilia. But oh—we'll grow apart—we won't be such good friends when you come back. We'll have started down different paths and we'll never get back to one another."

Cecilia laid her curly black head on Joy's shoulder and wound her arms around her cousin's neck.

"Joy, you have been dear to me since that day on the shore road when we finally decided to be good friends. You have been such a sister to me—at a time when I didn't have a sister, and needed one. There couldn't be anything—even death—that would ever put us so far apart that we couldn't _find_ each other, again. Why, I'll carry your love for me in my pocket—and pass it on. It is one of the best things about me—that you love me—the most beautiful thing. And I love you, too—and I always will. You are your name—you have been a joy to me and will be, all the days of your life and after."

Big tears were rolling prettily down Joy's cheeks. "I love you, too," she said. "And Cecilia—if Jacob and I ever have a little girl—I'm going to name her for you. Cecilia Margaret—or Margaret Cecilia—and call her Daisy. And I'll hope she grows up to be as sweet and brave and _true_ as you."

Cecilia had expected flack from Leslie, too, but Leslie surprised her by writing to her parents and requesting their permission to join up, too. Cecilia was equal parts delight—it wouldn't be so hard with a friendly face at her shoulder—and dubious.

"Do you think you'll like being a nurse, Leslie?" she asked doubtfully.

"No," said Leslie, admiring the red cross pin she had been given to wear on her lapel. "But I do think it will be glamorous—and I'll look a peach in those uniforms. And it'll be a swell way of finding a husband, I expect."

"What about Dick, Leslie?"

"Oh, _him_," said Leslie disdainfully. "Why, I never think of him anymore. He's old news."

"What about Marshall Douglas?" asked Cecilia, a little too unconcernedly.

"I'll keep him in my pocket for a rainy day," Leslie said. "He's wild for me, you know."

Cecilia did not know, but she had suspected—and she decided that she did not quite like that fact. But one couldn't remain angry at Leslie for long. She wound her arm through Cecilia's and tossed her shining river of hair over her shoulder.

"Well, as long as we're in town and close to civilization, we might go to Eaton's and do some shopping. Lord knows we won't have a chance to do it again for a good long while and I'd like to find a shade of lipstick that exactly matches the red trim on my uniform. Oh, Cecilia! We're going to have an adventure, darling. I feel it in my bones."

Cecilia laughed at her irrepressible cousin. The nurse at the recruiting center had warned them not to expect glamour, and here was Leslie with her head crammed full of that very thing. It would be hard work—and dreary work—heart-breaking work. Cecilia had no illusions about that. But all the same—a _little_ excitement wouldn't hurt. Loose lips might sink ships—but a sense of adventure never hurt anybody. Cecilia threw back her head and tasted the new life that was before her. Nurse Blythe—it sounded almost as good as 'doctor' would have sounded. For the first time in a long while she had a sense of purpose, and the flame of her ambition burned white and hot in her breast. She was going to do some good in the world, and learn something about herself, too.

How, then, could she help but feel that the world was full of possibility?


	17. Something for the History Books

Cecilia and Leslie went to Toronto in late June, for a two-month nurses' training course. They would have a week at home before going overseas. Cecilia woke early every morning in her dormitory and rode a bus with the other girls to the hospital, where they worked all day and often, long into the night. There were times, at first, when she missed home so much—when the work was so hard—that she thought she could not do it. But after a week in which dark circles popped out under her eyes, she fell into the swing of things. It _was_ hard work—but she could do it. She was determined to do it—she would—she _must_.

There is a time in every person's life in which he or she wakes one morning to find childhood behind them, and that happened for Cecilia in those sweltering summer days at the hospital. With each wound she bandaged, each surgery she assisted in, each tray of instruments she sterilized, each death she saw—she found herself an increment away from those slow, carefree days of her youth. She was sad to lose that part of herself—but she was surprised by the other attributes she found about herself. She learned that she had a calm, cool head—a steady hand—that Nellie Douglas had been right: the girls who listened and watched would inherit the earth. She made many friends among the cadets those first few weeks—some of the friendships would last a lifetime. In between shifts they were able to go out and see some of the city, and Cecilia found herself in the middle of a group at all times. 'Blythe' was respected by all the head nurses and the doctors—and the other girls thought her luck would rub off on themselves. And they had to admit that though Les Meredith was a real knock-out, a good-time girl and then some—it was Cecilia who was a sweetheart, and a true friend.

There came a day in mid-August that Cecilia would remember all her life. The girls had been to a dance that evening, and were late coming home even though they all had to be up early the next day. But their course was winding down, and they felt they had worked hard enough to earn one last hurrah, so they threw cares to the wind and went. Cecilia danced all night with a tall lieutenant who reminded her of Blythe, and had to hold onto Leslie's shoulders and slip her shoes off on the walk from the trolley to the dorm. The girls padded up the stairs as silently as possible—they did not want to be chastised by Nurse Prowdy—and stopped short when they came to the common room, where a small radio reposed on the table. The lights were blazing, despite the hour, and every woman on the hall was huddled around it, in curlers and bathrobes. They turned their faces in the direction of the revelers but did not seem to see them. Their own faces were white and wan from shock and grief.

"What is it?" Cecilia cried, "Oh, what has happened?"

"Dieppe," said a girl with her hair straggling out of its pin curls. It was the only word she said, and it was a word that would come to be written in blood on the annals of Canadian history.

No-one slept that night. They listened into the wee hours as the announcer described what had happened. Five thousand Canadian troops had tried for a beachhead in occupied France—they had outnumbered the Germans five to one—but the Germans had been waiting for them, and had slaughtered them as they came ashore. More than half the Canadian boys who went onto the beach were wounded, and another thousand of them were dead.

"Oh, God," said Cecilia, clutching at Leslie's hands. "Oh, God. Oh—_Blythe_. Leslie—do you think—?"

"We can't know," said Leslie, stunned into pallor, for once in her life. "We—won't—know—for weeks."

"I must get Red Apple Farm on the long distance," Cecilia murmured, but she was unable to get through, though she tried for hours. Everyone in the country was ringing up their families—their friends—but nobody could know anything. It was more for comfort that people reached out—but comfort was hard to come by on that terrible night.

The casualty reports came within days. Cecilia and Leslie's return to the Glen coincided with the first of them. Blythe had been at Dieppe but he was safe—he was not even wounded. Uncle Bruce had not been part of the failed invasion. Gilly and Walt were in Italy, away from the action. Cecilia's face streamed tears as she heard that those she loved were safe. She would feel shamed for her own thankfulness, after.

For so many of the Glen and Four Winds boys had not come through. Drew Elliott was dead—Ed Crawford—Herb MacAllister. Angus Moore had lost an arm. Tommy Bryant was missing in action. Jonas Blake, grandson of Phillipa and the Reverend Jo, had died in the first wave that went ashore.

The Glen had been scarce of boys for a month, but those that remained signed up in record numbers, now. Marshall Douglas, who had turned eighteen in early August, was among the first. Even cousins Owen and Jake joined up, though they were only seventeen. Their mothers had not wanted to let them go—but they knew that they could not hold their boys back from duty. They went into town, with their parents, and returned the next day, in khaki, looking as though they had grown up suddenly, overnight.

Rilla, who had not been resolved to Gilbert's going, was strangely proud of her littlest boy. He had so much fighting spirit in him—she thought of Walter, and how he would have been proud of Owen, too. But Cecilia was not as resigned as Owen's mother. She looked her cousin up and down, and sighed. Owen should have been squiring Betsy Drew around to dances and playing football for the Glen for another year. His time should not have come so soon.

"I don't mind," said Owen, admiring his long legs in his uniform trousers, his shined boots. "I was going to run away—but I thought it would hurt mother if I did—this way's better. She gave me her blessing—Dad, too. Although he said that he was afraid if anything happened to me, it would kill mother. I told him to see straight. Mummy's always been wild about Gilly—_he's_ her baby, out of all of us. She loves us all, but if anything happened to him, she wouldn't be able to take it. If anything has to happen to one of us Ford boys, I hope it's me."

"Nothing must happen to _any_ of you," said Cecilia, fiercely.

"Well, I don't intend to let it happen," said Owen, easily. "I mean to stay alive—and have a bit of fun out of the war. Say, Cis—I'm going to be in England same time as you. Won't you look over the crop of little nurses and pick me out a sweet one? I'd like a nice little goldeny one, with a little meat on her bones. But not too much, hear?"

"Oh, Owen!" Cecilia cried. "You are too young to be speaking of such things."

"Not too tall, not too short," Owen said, his eyes twinkling. "About yea high—so's I can cuddle her to my chest when we're dancing."

Cecilia went back to Red Apple Farm with laughter on her lips. But as she sat out in the gloaming hour, her face darkened, and she gave a little sigh. Blythe and Walt and Gilly gone—Owen and Jake going—Aunt Di had refused to let Teddy go until he was eighteen, but that was not too far off. Then they would have none of their boys left—save for Leslie's brother, little Ken. It was lonely without their big boys to add color and spice and laughter to life. And how many of them would return? Blythe had sent her one of his new poems only last week:

_For her the lonely vigil waits  
When ashen dawnlights come and go,  
Each bringing through the future's gates  
Its presages of fear and woe;  
For her the __watch__ with soul and heart  
Grown sick with dread, as women may,  
_

It was a lonely vigil she kept with the memories of those tall, beautiful lads—those carefree girls—those sweet, untrammeled yesterdays.

But then she remembered the next lines of Blythe's verse:

_Yet keeping still her pain apart  
From the wan duties of the day._

She would try to keep her 'pain apart' and remember her wan duties. She would tryst with loneliness no longer. It was not helpful to anybody.

______________________________

There would have been a dance to see the travelers off, if things had not been so grim. As it was, they settled on a prayer meeting—and Cecilia thought that was probably better. There were times when dance and laughter were like prayer—but there were times when only good old prayer could do. Both Reverends Meredith gave a prayer—Grandpa Meredith looking so old, in the last few weeks!—and the Methodist minister, which elicited only a sniff from Mary Vance. She could not find it in her heart to hate the Methodists when her boy—sitting close by her side—would soon be gone away.

The choir sang:

_Help me, O Lord, the God of my salvation;  
I have no hope, no refuge but in Thee;  
Help me to make this perfect consecration,  
In life or death Thine evermore to be._

Cecilia bowed her head and thought over the words. God would help her—and she vowed that the work she should do overseas would be consecrated to the memory of all the boys who had fallen—would fall—who had given so much more than she could ever give.

She walked home in the soft night with Marshall. She had not seen him in weeks and weeks, and now he, too, was going away. She could not imagine anybody so jolly and bright as him filthed by the dirt and gore of battle.

They walked in silence back to Red Apple. Cecilia reached up and tucked her hand through the crook of Marshall's elbow. She had worn her nurses' uniform that night, with the long blue cape with red facing, and her little cap. She was not immune to the thought that they must make a very dashing couple in that moment. She thought of the chivalrous lords and graceful ladies of Elizabethan days, the Gibson girl and her dapper paramour of the teens, the flapper and the dandy of the Jazz Age. The soldier and the nurse would be the courtly image of their own youth. She smiled up at Marshall, and he grinned companionably down to her. There were so many things she wanted to ask him—but she didn't know quite how to begin.

"It's a nice night," she said finally, tilting her head up to look at the little clouds scuttling across the sky. How pale and milky they were against the velvet black. "I had it specially ordered, Marshall, for your going-away. You're leaving tomorrow—when? On the eight-thirty?"

"Yes," he said. "Will you be on my train?"

"No," she sighed. "Dad's driving me and Leslie to the boat train. He wants the extra time with us—with me—I think."

Marshall said nothing, but tucked his hand over hers, companionably. He knew their old lives were ending—that whatever came next was still unknown. Cecilia slanted her eyes over to watch him. How tall Marshall was, in uniform! He looked so—official. Did the Canadian Army know it was getting just a boy to fight for them? Cecilia grinned at him as they lingered by the low brick wall that ran around the orchard.

.

"For all that get-up, Marshall, you're still a little boy. You can't fool _me_."

Once Marshall would have laughed at her—she was surprised he did not laugh, now.

"But I'm not a boy any longer, Cee," he said softly.

A strange, electric thrill went through her as he said it—so seriously—with some strange meaning in his green eyes. But she tossed her head to cover it.

"You are—you are. Oh, Marshall, you always will be just a lad to me."

He surprised her by catching her up in his arms. Not in a playful grasp, as he once might have. His arm went tight around her waist—he pulled her hard against his chest—he took her chin in his strong hand and tilted her head up so he could look down into her eyes.

"I'm not," he said, and he kissed her, as if to prove it.

Cecilia was no stranger to kissing—she had been kissed many times by Sid Gardiner—but all the same, she had only ever been kissed by Sid—and that one, weird, fleeting kiss with Blythe. And she had never been kissed like _this_—she was sure of that. Marshall did not put his lips to hers, questioningly. He kissed her as though he meant it. That same thrill zipped through her body from head to foot—her heartbeat sang in her ears—the very earth seemed to fall away under her feet. She found herself with her arms around Marshall's neck, holding him nearer still. His fingers were twined in her black hair.

Finally it ended—a pain like heartbreak went though her that it must—but Marshall still held her close, and would not let her go. Oh—it couldn't be _this_! It was only the excitement of things—he was going—she was going—it was Marshall! It was the moonlight, it was that he was holding her so close, pressed the length of his body, it was only that she hadn't been kissed in so long. That was all—all! She would blink and this crazy spell would pass.

But it didn't. Marshall still looked down into her eyes, and she felt mesmerized by the look in them.

"I'm not just a boy," he commanded her. "Say it."

"You aren't," said some stranger who was temporarily inhabiting Cecilia's body.

"And you're going to write to me, while we're away?"

"Every day. And you'll—come home?"

"Yes. And Cee—you aren't going to let anybody else kiss you until I do. Not even Blythe—I know he wants to. Tell me."

"Not—even—Blythe," said the stranger. "Nobody, Marshall. I promise."

"Good." He did not look pleased, Cecilia thought—only as though she had told him something very matter-of-fact—that the moon was so and so many miles away from the earth. It _was_ a fact—why should he question it?

She thought he would kiss her again, but he only held her a moment longer, his eyes looking over her little face. He wanted to remember it—the pointed little chin—the dimples on either side of her that softly curving mouth—the three freckles on that slender nose—the peaked black eyebrows like little caps over eyes with such long, lashes. That one curl that threatened to drop down over her eyes. Marshall watched her—and then he let her go, and reached for his cap, which he had set on the wall.

"I won't say goodbye," he said. "Because it isn't. I'll look for your letters. I'll be waiting."

And then he was gone, and Cecilia came back to herself with a shock. Her legs trembled underneath her slight frame, and she slid down the wall to the grass, and pressed her hand against her galloping heart.

"Am I in love with Marshall Douglas?" she asked herself. "Oh, I won't be—I promised Blythe—I won't."

And yet her promise to Marshall—that she would save her lips for him, and only him—was in her heart, and she meant to keep it, too. She could still feel his arms around her—was feeling it still, as she slipped into bed beside Leslie. Her heartbeat gradually subsided, but it was a long time before Cecilia Blythe slept that night. And across the harbor, at the Glen, a tall young private lay awake in his bed, and made promises of his own.


	18. Cecilia in England

Almost as soon as she had been installed in her dormitory in London, Cecilia sat down and wrote a sheaf of letters home. Her little teardrops dotted each page as she thought of the folks at dear Red Apple Farm. Little Romy—tiny Iris—Penny and Dad and Mother, sweet Mother…and _Grandmother_…and Grandpa Meredith, who was so frail as he shook her hand, and Grandfather Blythe, who had said, "How very proud of you I am, little Cecilia," with the true feeling shining in his eyes.

Her eyes filled up and overflowed. "Drat," murmured Cecilia, brushing the tears away, and replacing the soggy paper in front of her with a fresh sheet, and vowing _not_ to waste anymore paper by crying during letter-writing time.

She took particular care with the letter she wrote to Blythe. His letters had been frosty since she had made her decision to join up, and she had had only a quick note from him after the horror of Dieppe. She wanted badly to re-establish some of the old camaraderie between them. It meant so much to her that Blythe should approve of her work. And—she missed him. She missed the old wellspring of feeling between them, and wondered, dismally, if their friendship was fading?

"London is like another planet from the one I'm used to," she wrote, forming her words carefully, but knowing large swaths of them might be blacked out by the censors. "There are parts of the city that are quite untouched by the German bombs, but other parts have been simply devastated and lay in ruins. There is nobody to build it up, you see. All the men are away fighting, and everybody that is left has all they can do to keep food on the table and clothes on their backs, besides. But the spirit of these people, Bly—it is amazing. They are cheerful, and hopeful, and you only have to talk to them for a moment or two before you know that they are not putting on an act—they really _believe_ things will turn out right, in the end. 'Stiff upper lip,' they say, and they abide by the adage on the placards that hang all over town: "Keep Calm and Carry On," and "Deserve Victory." We listen to Edward Murrow's broadcasts on the radio every night and when he says 'This…is London,' I get a thrill that goes all over me. I can't believe I'm really _here_.

"They _feel_ the war here more than we have yet at home. Air raid sirens sound at least once a day, though we have not had any trouble yet, thank goodness. There is no sugar or cream for our morning coffee, nor butter or eggs for breakfast. Bacon is scarce, and we are allowed only two ounces of meat a week, and it is usually grey and leathery and we can't be sure of what _type_ of meat it is. But as Leslie said at supper last night, 'I'm not entirely sure I'd _like _to know.' I just remind myself that with every bite, I am making it so _you_ can have the things you need, Blythe. And Walt and Gilly and Owen and Jakie and Marshall and Joy's Jacob, too.

"St. Alban's Hospital is located a little near the city center, in a neighborhood that was once beautiful and stately but now is bombed out and neglected looking. But the hospital itself has been lucky, so far, and is almost the only building in the area still standing. It must be the will of Providence that it is. I live in the dormitory adjacent, crowded in with the other nurses.It used to be less cramped but the whole top floor was ripped off during the Christmas blitz, and is now covered with only a tarpaulin. On rainy nights—of which there are many—it leaks dreadfully and I have to get up in the night to move my bed from the worst of them. But it seems silly to complain of a mere inconvenience, when so many people are dealing with worse. It is not so bad—all the same, I am glad Mother and Dad can't see it. If they could, they'd order me home at once, and I'm afraid my homesickness would get the better of me, and I'd _go_. Though I really am dealing with that scrumptiously—most days I am too busy to even think of missing home.

"Here is what my day is like: I am on night shift—all us new 'cads' are—and so I get up with the moon and go to bed with the sun. I work from 6 PM to 6 AM every day. Once a week, I am supposed to get a day off, but I have been told by the girls who've been here a while not to expect it. There is always something to be done, and there are never enough hands to do it all. I am only learning the ropes, and so I'm not allowed in surgeries yet. But there is enough to do, without that. We clean bedpans—even Leslie does, grimly—and sit with the soldiers—write letters for the ones that can't—administer pain medication and check vitals on the hour. Yesterday the soldiers on my ward had a little fun with me—I walked down the row of beds doling out thermometers, and then went back up the line, collecting them. One hundred and three—one hundred and four degrees—I thought they must all be burning up with fever and must have looked dreadfully alarmed because they all started laughing as one. Blythe, they had taken their thermometers out and touched them to the light bulbs of the lamps on the tables in between beds! I laughed along with them, after a moment, but weakly—so weakly that I think they felt bad and promised never to do it again.

"Most of our soldiers are only here for a few days, and then they're sent back to the front, but others have been wounded badly and are here for longer. It is difficult to see so many boys sick or in pain. A good number of them are Canadian—and they like me to talk to them a little, because I remind them of home, they say. Every single one of them has a mother or a sweetheart or a wife waiting for them, and it the saddest thing, because I know that some of these boys will not be going home—they will go back into battle and be killed—or they will die here, in hospital. And _there is nothing I can do_, besides sit and laugh and read with them and try to make them as comfortable as they can be in the moment. For all I inherited of Mother's meekness, I've also got Dad's practical streak—I like to pretend, sometimes, that I can make things better, but I am leaning, really and concretely for the first time, that I am as powerless as any mere mortal, and all the successes I've had in my life aren't a sign of any great talent or drive—it's luck, plain and simple—no it isn't, it's the mighty hand of Providence, and I am ashamed of calling it 'luck' just now. He has a plan, and I just have to go with it. I can't understand it, and so I shan't try, but I _will_ trust that it will work out in the end. I shall find a humorous note to end this anecdote on—here it is. Leslie has a little notebook that she has started listing the names and ranks of the men she thinks are 'husband material.' So far they are all Americans, and all amazingly good-looking. She had over a dozen names, but she had to cross two of them out because…well, I am determined I shan't write that to you. How I've failed at not being dismal! And I've violated every rule in the 'How to Write a Letter to Your Soldier' guidelines. I suppose I'll have to change the topic entirely.

"There was a chance Owen would get leave—he is with Jake and Marshall Douglas in Wales, now. He rang me up and we planned a glorious day out, but in the end it fell through, for we both had to work on our days off. I wonder if I shall see anything of him here? I hope so. It helps having Leslie with me, more than I ever thought it would. She can tell when I'm slipping over into blue and she always comes and creeps into bed with me, my little tiny bed, the way she did when we were girls and spent the night with each other in Montreal. Dear Leslie! We were so worried we'd be placed in different facilities over here, but Providence came through for us again. Besides, I've made friends with the other girls who share our suite—Peggy Long and Violet Mason. Peggy is Canadian, too, but Violet is London born-and-bred, with a Cockney accent that sounds like birds chirruping in a nice, friendly way. Peggy, Vi and I are cut of the same cloth—quiet, and a little retiring—but Leslie has enough spark to set us all ablaze. Based on her personality alone we have become quite a notorious little clique already—the Good-Time Girls, the others call us, which sets Nurse Prowdy's brows to lowering. She is against fun of any kind, and even the threat of fun disturbs her—my, how I wouldn't have minded if Providence placed _her_ somewhere else! (Though she has left her husband and her little boy to come here, and I mustn't forget that her sacrifice is even greater than mine).

"We have another room-mate who I have never met yet, Peggy and Vi and Leslie and I do—one I've never even seen, so far. The only evidence of her existence at all is a little bed in the corner, by the window, and a reek of perfume that fills the entire place so that I have to sleep with the windows open or perish by false gardenia. 'Who sleeps there?' Leslie asked on our first day, and Peggy said, 'Manon,' in a voice of such foreboding that we dared not ask anything else. From what I understand, Manon, whoever she is, is on the day shift, and works 6 AM to PM, so our paths have not crossed, but stories about her abound on our hall, and are whispered in fearsome voices. Manon is rumored to be only sixteen, though she _says_ she's eighteen—she may also be a German double agent—she refuses to eat her meals in the dining hall and goes across the street to the Italian restaurant, and takes them there—she has been 'adopted' by that family and has a little dog she found on the streets that sleeps in the furnace room. She sets her hair every night against hospital rules and apparently wears brooches pinned to the front of her smock though there is a strict dress code that says not to. All of the cadets and most of the head nurses are afraid of her, and have been, since she went into a temper once, when she was reprimanded, and actually tore out a chunk of her own hair in a rage. And now they don't dare to reprimand her at all. Apparently, once she made even _Dr. Crosby_ cry, she was so cutting to him. Blythe—I've heard so many stories about this girl—some of them such tall tales—that I fear when I meet her she'll be ten feet high and have a blue ox as an accompaniment! I'm _sure_ she can't be nearly as horrid as they make her out to be.

"'Well!' sniffed Leslie, who doesn't like being eclipsed. 'I wonder why they don't send this Manon person home if she's so much trouble.'

"Apparently, they don't because she is such a good nurse, and, as Violet informed us, she has no home—she is a French girl who lost her home and family in the war. At least, that is what she tells everyone. She sounds amazing—I'm not sure I should like to know her—but she is an intriguing figure, for all that. I think she must be very beautiful. At least, that is how I imagine her: as the cold, cruel Cordelia Montmorency from Grandmother's stories of long ago. Bad people are almost always very beautiful, I've found—look at May Binnie. That is what makes them _so dangerous_, and hard to resist.

"'The boys love Manon,' said Peggy, off-handedly—and how Leslie's brow lowered down and down! Leslie's jealousy would be fatal if she wasn't so sweet in other places. She's only _playing_ at being a bad girl—and it's not too convincing.

"Blythe, when we were traveling across the Atlantic, safe every night in our little berths, I couldn't help but think about our Blythe family coming out from England and our Meredith family coming out from Scotland. They made the journey two hundred years before I made mine in reverse. How scared they must have been about what waited for them on the Canadian shore—it must have been like sailing off into the unknown, with only the stars to steer by. I got great comfort from those stars every night on my 'passage'—did you? I felt I couldn't be going anywhere so very strange if there were those familiar stars—and little friendly mistral night winds—and sea spray and wisps of clouds and that lovely moon hanging over everything.

Darling, I—I think about you every day. And you wrote in your last letter, did I ever think of my promise, and was I any closer to being able to love you in that way…I don't know if I am, but Blythe, I miss you—and if I could see you I would let you put your arms around me—and I would lay my head on your shoulder and sigh for happiness. We wouldn't even need to talk. It would be enough just to _be_ together, as we always were in the sweet old days.

I'm including a snapshot Leslie took of me in my uniform—she says I look almost like a real nurse in it. And now I must sign off—it is noon, which is bedtime, for me. Tonight I have to tell Private Arnstead that his leg _must _come off (he's one of the Canadians and they think he'll _listen _to me) and I must help Lieutenant Williams write a letter to his wife, telling her he will never see again. But those things can wait, for I'm on my way to dreamland—perhaps we'll see each other, there.

_Love,_

CECILIA

P.S.: Mother told me to write you and let you know she is making up a special parcel for you and sending it straightaway. And I'll have one of my own for you 'right soon,' as Betsy Howard, our lone American nurse, is prone to say.

P.P.S. Leslie has taken up smoking. I am very disappointed in her, but the more I beg her to give it up, the more she seems intent on doing it. If you write to her, Blythe, won't you tell her the boys don't like that kind of thing? I think it would be the only way to persuade her. (Although if a girl looks like Leslie, I don't think most boys would care if she had plumes of cigarette smoke coming out of her _ears_.)

"You're writing about me," said Leslie from where she was reclined on her bed. "I can tell because you keep darting those little disapproving glances at me when you think I'm not looking. Mother smoked in the Twenties, so I don't see why everyone's up in arms over me doing it, now. My, what a stack of letters you have there—" She jumped up to investigate. "Who is this big thick one to?"

"Nobody," muttered Cecilia, snatching it away and hiding it in her pocket. Of course it was addressed to Marshall, but she did not want Leslie to know because she was not sure Leslie would understand. She was not quite sure she understood, herself. In the two weeks she had been overseas, she had written thirteen letters to him—this was the fourteenth. As hard as she was finding it to keep her promise to Blythe, she found she had no trouble at all keeping her promise to Marshall Douglas, who shouldn't have mattered at all.


	19. Manon

Cecilia laid down the book she had been reading and checked her watch and stood, to a chorus of boos and jeers. "Where you going, Blythie?" "Got a hot date?" "Aw, Blythie, stay _little_ longer." One of the bedridden soldiers reached out and tweaked her cap, and she stepped aside, blushing, setting it right atop her head again.

"I'm sorry boys," she smiled. "But there's things to be done and I've already stayed a quarter-hour longer than I should have. Hitler and his war machine wait for no man—and _The Wind in the Willows _will keep until tomorrow. Besides—I thought you fellows said you didn't care for it, when we began?"

She said the last part with a raised eyebrow—she liked to read to the soldiers every day, but their choice of books was woefully slim. Grandmother Blythe had promised a big box but for right now, they had to make do, and the soldiers at first had scoffed at Graehme's fanciful story as 'kid's stuff.' But 'kids' come in all sizes and ages, and now, three-quarters of the way through, they were as deeply engrossed in the lives of the creatures of Wild Wood as if they had been written by Tolstoi. Cecilia tucked the book back on the shelf. As she was leaving the ward, one of the quieter men—really, he was just a boy, with golden fuzz covering his cheeks—reached out and caught her arm.

"What is it, Harold?"

"Please, Nurse Blythe," he said, in a low voice. "I—I'm afraid if I die in the night—I'll never find out if Mr. Toad reforms."

Cecilia leaned down so her lips were level with his ear. "He does," she whispered. "But Harold—you won't die—you're getting better by the day. Dr. Crosby says so, and I wouldn't lie to you—you know that. I'd tell you true. You go right to sleep and don't worry anymore about dying. Louise isn't going to be rid of you _that_ easily."

"Lights out, fellas," she called, as she reached for the switch. When they _were_ out she waited to make sure none of the men opened their blackout curtains. They sometimes did—to look out at the city or the stars—but that was strictly _verboten_. One couldn't be too careful with things like that, in this part of the country. She listened as the men settled down for the night, clearing their throats and murmuring over the beds to one another. She made a note on her chart that Private Dawes was due for another pain pill in an hour's time. And then she made her way through the dark hall to the nurses' station.

Cecilia served out the remaining hours of her shift in a haze. Harold Rumsford's face loomed up in her mind, the way it had looked when he had asked if he would die. She liked him. He was a Canadian, and she had been pleased to find out that his girlfriend, Louise, went to Redmond with cousin Merry. She liked to sit with him and figure out common points of acquaintance between them. His mother had been a Crawford of the Upper Glen. Well—she knew she shouldn't get so attached. It was against the rules. Nothing would happen to Harold—he would have a limp for life, but he would go home and marry Louise and they would have many years together—but what if he wouldn't get better? It just didn't do to begin to know, or like, or love these boys. Cecilia was finding it hard to the that sort of detachment. It was the hardest part of the job.

She thought back to the little private who had come in only two days before. He had been so small, and thin—and his face had been so badly burned they could not tell what he looked like at all. He had been conscious only long enough to whisper a name—what name, they had not been able to make out—before lapsing into coma. He had died the next morning—she had come down to ask about him and had seen his bed stripped, the mattress bare. And nobody had had to tell her. The poor little boy—and there had been no way to identify him, so it was likely his family would never know what happened to him. She thought of a mother—a sister—a sweetheart—waiting, for years, perhaps for the rest of their entire lives, the way that Grandmother seemed to wait, still, for her own boy who had gone and not returned. Deep down at the bottom of everything, the private's mother would hold out a little hope—and all the while, her boy would be dead. Cecilia knew he was, but could not tell that mother, because she did not know _who_ he was. That name he had whispered, through those cracked, blistered lips! She felt tears start up in her eyes, and she walked quickly out through the hospital doors, to let the cool air come and dry them.

She did not feel much like going across the street and to bed, so, on impulse, she began to climb the fire escape to the hospital roof. From this height, she could see the curve of the sky where it met the horizon, stained faint pink and purple as the sun began its ascent. The Thames caught the color and reflected it back. She saw rows of houses, with gaps like missing teeth where buildings had been bombed out. On the roof of the church, next door, a firewatcher in his tin hat raised a hand in weary greeting. Cecilia raised hers back. She turned around to look east, toward the sunrise, and then shrieked at the spectre she beheld. On the ledge that ran around the edge of the roof a girl was sitting, swinging her feet above the long drop to the ground.

"Don't jump!" she cried, thinking she was about to witness a suicide.

The girl got nimbly to her feet and turned around as gracefully as if she was standing on solid ground. She grinned at Cecilia's stricken face.

"I've no intention of jumping," she said. "But _you_ almost scare me off the edge, with your call."

"If you come away from there we won't have to worry about it at all," said Cecilia, anxiously.

The girl sighed, and then smiled as if she were only humoring Cecilia. She jumped down and twirled away from the edge of the roof until she was right before Cecilia.

"I'm Manon Delaroux," she said, holding out her hand. Her French accent made the vowels rich enough to eat.

This—this little girl was the famous Manon? Cecilia wanted to laugh. She had expected a Binnie-like creature, but instead she got a thin little face with snub nose—a sheaf of waved, wheat-blond hair—a pair of dancing brown eyes—a charming gap between little white teeth. This was the girl who shouted at doctors, and went into rages? Cecilia looked at the abundant hair spilling over her shoulders. It did not look as if any chunks had been torn from it. The only thing that Cecilia _could_ believe about Manon was that she _was_ only sixteen—she was small enough to pass for younger than that.

There was a snuffling sound behind a stack of shingles and Manon made a whistle between her teeth. "Come, Toto." A little, wiry-haired dog appeared—so that was true, then, too. Manon did have a dog. She knelt down and gathered the terrier up in her arms and presented him to Cecilia as one would give a queen her orb and scepter.

"You are Cecilia Blythe—and this is Toto," she said. "See his pink tongue? I found him roaming the streets—he was so thin. I've fattened him up. He is named for a movie. Can you guess which one?"

"It's _The Wizard of Oz_," Cecilia said, reaching out to stroke the dog's plump belly. "It played for four months at the Glen theatre. It's one of my favorite movies."

"It is the only movie I've ever seen," said Manon. "There is no theatre in my village. How I love it! When Dorothy does her shoes like this," Manon clicked the heels of her white nursing shoes together softly. "And she wakes up and the Scare-cow and the Man of Tin and the _lion_ are the people she knew and loved all along."

"The Scare_crow_ and the Tin Man, not the Man of Tin," said Cecilia, laughing.

Manon waved an airy hand and set Toto down to run off. "I am not so good with English," she said. "But I am learning. I listen to the radio and I sing the songs I hear. Would you like to hear me sing a song _pour vous_—for you, I mean?"

"I'd like that very much," said Cecilia, sitting gingerly down on the ledge but facing the roof, not the street. Manon sat with her, and began to sing,

_Somewhere over the rainbow_

_Way up high_

_There's a land that I heard of_

_Once in a lullaby._

The sky was pinkening beyond her curly head. Manon sang the whole song with a burst of deliciously un-selfconscious enthusiasm. Her voice was not good, but the effect was still striking—the words of hope and sweetness—_where troubles melt like lemon-drops_—and the setting, _away above the chimney tops_ as the sun pulled itself up into the dawning day. It was like magic, and by the time Manon sang the song's final query—_if happy little bluebirds fly above the rainbow, why, oh why, can't I?—_the girls were sitting with their hands clasped and were already on the way to being fast friends.

"You looked sad when you came up here," Manon said, in the silence that followed, snuggling up to Cecilia like a wee little girl—like Romy would. "What were you thinking of?"

"Little Private Johnson," Cecilia said softly. "He died."

"Yes." Manon sighed. "I sat with him. I held his poor hand. I wondered if I should not. Perhaps I am hurting him? But I thought somebody _should_ hold it."

"I'm glad you did," said Cecilia. "He couldn't have felt any pain, but he might have felt that somebody was sitting with him—was _there_ with him—easing him out of this life and into the next."

"Do you think there is a next life?" asked Manon suddenly, and fiercely. "_Do_ you?"

Cecilia was stunned by the question. Never before in her life had anybody questioned the idea of heaven before. Of course she believed there was, and said so, certainly.

"There must be," she said. "If we just—die—well, it's a lot of effort for a Creator to go to, if it will only be lost in the end. Think of Private Johnson. He was born—raised up—he had likes and dislikes and a personality that made him different from anybody else. He had people who loved him—he can't just be _gone_. And Jesus himself said, 'whoever believes in me shall not perish, and have eternal life.'"

"And those," said Manon, her eyes flashing, "Who _don't_ believe—they shall just die? I think that's very mean."

"I don't believe that is what he meant," protested Cecilia. "I think that He meant _believing_ was a surefire way—but not the only way, perhaps. For he said to the sinner on the cross—the thief—'this day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.'"

"You sound very sure," said Manon, skeptically.

"I am," said Cecilia. "My grandfather is a minister—when I was just a girl we would sit and talk of things. He's very smart—and he _wouldn't_ believe in something that he didn't know to be the truth. Oh, Manon—I wish _you _could talk to my Grandpa Meredith. He could explain it all to you, ever so much better than I could, if he wasn't in one of his dreamy moods. Or else my mother could. Or my Grandmother Blythe—dear Grandmother. She lives her faith every day. It is in everything she does—her belief in the world's goodness."

"My, what a lot of family you have," said Manon, with the merest hint of coldness in her voice. But Cecilia was lost to the series of faces passing in front of her eyes—dear, beloved people!—and didn't quite catch her new friend's tone.

"I do have a lot of family," she said proudly. "They are good folks—good, honest, beautiful folks—and I love them. And _they_ love me—I feel that they do, even half a world away. It is what keeps me going. Oh—I couldn't imagine trying to go it without them!"

Manon stood—rather stiffly. "How nice for you," she said flatly. She whistled for Toto, who came running. She tucked the little dog under her arm.

"I must be going," she said. "Come along, Toto. Goodbye."

Cecilia jumped up. "Would you like to get breakfast?" she said eagerly. "I should like to get to know you better."

"I never eat breakfast."

"A cup of coffee, then?—if you don't have any ration points, I have some you might borrow."

"No, thank you," said Manon, and turned, and climbed back down the fire-escape, Toto yapping as she went. Cecilia stood on the roof in the glare of the now-risen sun, and smarted against the other girl's rebuff. What had happened? They had been on the way to being friends—and such a friendship was promised by that brief encounter! She felt puzzled, and frustrated, as though someone had handed down something very lovely to her—and then, at the last moment, snatched it away. Her head whirled, and her Shirley pride rose up within her.

"_I _have enough friends—I don't need another," she said firmly. But she knew it was a lie. There was a kind of friendship that Manon Delaroux could offer her that nobody else could. Something magical, and satisfying, and life-changing. If only she knew what had made her go so cold and prickly? But it was too much to wonder at, now, so Cecilia went down and across the street and up to her bed, the bittersweet melody of the song Manon had sung still lingering in her ears, hauntingly.


	20. Each to Each

"It's our day off—come to the movies with me," begged Cecilia of Leslie one gray November day. "_Casablanca _is playing, and I think you'd love it."

"I can't," said Leslie pulling a yellow dress from her wardrobe and hold it up against her slim body and frowning. "_I _have a date." She cast the yellow dress aside for a rose one and smiled with satisfaction at the contrast between the deep pink and her honeyed hair.

"With whom?" Cecilia wondered. "Leslie, if you wear that dress on the ward you'll cause a havoc. Remember—these men aren't well."

"The one I'm seeing is well enough," said Leslie. "Dr. Blackwell is taking me dancing."

"Dr. Blackwell! Les, he's forty if he's a day!"

"He's also a dead ringer for Cary Grant," said Leslie. "He might be _eighty_ and it wouldn't matter, if he looks like that. Ask Peg or Vi to go with you."

"They can't," sighed Cecilia dejectedly. "They're on call tonight. Well, I won't go, then. It won't be any fun with just myself."

Manon, who had been straightening the sheets on her bed, suddenly looked up with naked longing on her face.

"I'll go with you," she said. "I adore Humphrey Bogart. If—you wouldn't mind having me."

Cecilia wished she had not spoken. Her soul was still smarting from the girl's rebuff of the week before. They had met, several times, in the days that followed—Manon had been transferred to the night shift, with the rest of them. Cecilia rather thought she must have asked for the change, but couldn't imagine why. Manon had been frosty to her and their moment of camaraderie on the rooftop was like a thing out of a dream. She rather regretted speaking of her plans before Manon. The only thing worse than going to the cinema alone, she felt, would be going with someone who obviously did not like her.

But she could think of no way out of it. "If you'd like to come, fine," she said shortly. "I'm going to shower. You can meet me downstairs at seven, if you wish. The film's at eight."

At the appointed time Cecilia trudged downstairs, hoping that Manon would have changed her mind about coming. But no—there she was, prompt and punctual, and garbed in a fabulous costume. She wore a dress of lurid blue lace—just the exact color of blue Cecilia thought that Grandmother Blythe must have meant when she described the old Avonlea town hall. Pinned to the bodice were several rhinestone brooches of various shape and size. Looped around Manon's long neck were ropes of paste pearls—on her legs were pale pink stockings—and perched atop her golden curls was a pink hat as flat as a pancake, accented with dyed ostrich feathers in a rainbow of colors. She looked positively _awful—_she looked as if she had escaped from a lunatic asylum—but all the same, Cecilia felt rather unremarkable next to her in her plain navy gabardine suit. It did not help her feelings toward the girl, so she was rather frosty herself when she said,

"Come on, then. Let's go if we're going."

Cecilia paid for her ticket and watched as Manon counted out pennies to pay for her own. If the past week had not happened—if that terrible coldness on the roof had not happened—she might have paid for the girl. She knew that Manon spent most of her money on food for Toto, and gave a little each month to the Italian family who took her in. But tonight she thought that Manon must pay her own way. If they were _friends_, it would have been different. But Manon had been the one to decide they shouldn't be, so it was not Cecilia's problem how many pennies she did or didn't have.

She sat stiffly through a news reel about the Doolittle Raid, the American troops invasion of North Africa. Her heart caught in her chest whenever she saw a man with curly hair—Gilly—or dark brows and a strong chin—Walt. Cecilia never lost hope that she would see one or the other of them when she saw a news reel—that they would be waving, and smiling, and all right. She sat upright with her hands in her lap, giving Manon full use of the arm rest between their seats. But Manon did not seem to want to use it, either, and sat hunched down in her seat. Several times she turned as if she wanted to whisper something to Cecilia, who did not want to hear any petty excuses. She put her gloved finger to her lips, and so Manon shrank down again.

The movie began—and Cecilia immediately forgot herself. From Rick and Ilsa's first meeting—to the very end, when Ilsa looks over her shoulder at Rick as she boards the plane—both girls were captivated. When Rick and Renault walk off into the fog toward Brazzaville, Cecilia was surprised to find tears dripping down her face. Manon's hand was tight around her own. When the lights came up, the girls looked at each other and laughed though their tears.

"Oh, we're silly," Cecilia said, wiping her eyes. "It's only a movie, after all."

"Wasn't it wonderful, though, how she loved him?" asked Manon, as they made their way out of the theatre into the chilly night. "I can't believe that _monsieur_ Bogart did not love her at least a little when they were—how do you say?—filming. That kind of feeling _must _be real."

"It is very beautiful to watch," Cecilia admitted. "But sometimes I wonder if it isn't harmful, somehow. Real love doesn't ever measure up to what you see in movies." She was thinking of Sid—whom she had loved—and Blythe, whom she was beginning to think she could love. She had not felt toward either of them how Ilsa must have felt toward Rick.

"Movies are not the trouble," said Manon, seriously. "It is love itself. Don't you think it would have been better for Ilsa and Rick to never have loved at all, than to lose each other so cruelly?"

"No," said Cecilia, certainly. "Even if they never meet again, their love—however long it lasted—will always be a bright spot for them to look back to. If Rick and Ilsa were real and could tell you, Manon, I feel certain they'd say that they don't regret it, at all."

Manon shivered. "Are you cold?" Cecilia asked her. For the girl was not wearing a coat—Cecilia wondered if she had one, and began rifling through her own closet, thinking if she had one to spare.

"No," said Manon. "Someone just walked over the place that is to be my grave, I suppose."

Cecilia would remember that remark, and their conversation this night, years hence, when she thought of a narrow grave marked with a white cross "somewhere in France."

The arrived at the dormitory and stood awkwardly by the door.

"Cecilia," said Manon, finally, "Are you hungry? Would you like to come across the street for some supper—and meet the Braschis? They are poor but good, and very clean. And their food is _magnifique_." She looked so hopeful that Cecilia could not demur, though she wondered as she followed Manon to the Braschi's restaurant, if the girl actually was insane? Only a mad person would go from so cold to so warm, about-face like that!

The Braschis were as nice as Manon said, and fed the two little 'infermieras' plates upon plates of pasta—so much food, in all, that the girls did not have to talk. They ate and laughed at the chattering Braschis' attempts to feed them more. When their plates were being cleared, Manon said, dreamily, looking at the flickering shadows cast by a candle stuck in a wine bottle in the center of the table,

"Do you think that _we_ look like shadows to our shadow-selves?"

"Oh, Manon!" Cecilia cried out. "_Why_ can't we be friends? I know we could be—great friends, too. I have been waiting all my life, I think, for a friend like you. Oh, why can't we be—why?"

Manon looked startled. "We are friends," she said.

"No, we're not." Cecilia shook her head. "We can't be—when you are so cold to me. It started that day on the roof, when I told you about my family—you snubbed me, and cut me dead. I thought you couldn't like me at all."

Manon looked away and when she looked back her brown eyes were gleaming in the low light.

"I didn't like you, that day on the roof," she said. "I—I hated you. You _have_ a family, you see. And everyone I have ever loved is dead. I never knew my _maman_—she ran away when I was born. And my sister, Nina, and my little papa…we are not like you, you see. We are—I do not know how to say it—_juif_. _Juden_, the Germans called us."

"Jewish," Cecilia breathed, with a sense of horror at what she knew would be coming next.

Manon nodded. "It seems strange to say so," she said. "Since we were not much of anything. I went to the _ecole_ and was taught by the sisters, same as any other girl in my village. We had a little Christmas tree each year—but set candles in the windows for eight nights, and my papa read us the story of the oil that lasted eight days. My papa was from Belgium. But Hitler did not care about our Christmas tree, and the fact that I sang songs to the _Vierge Marie_ with my classmates. When I was at school, they Nazis came for them and the other Jews in our town. My papa was shot, and Nina was taken away. Some of the _Francais Libres_—the Free French—came and took me out of class and hid me so that I could not be taken. I slept in a barn for three nights. On the fourth night they came and got me. They had papers for me to travel under. A little French Catholic girl's who had died, called Manon Delaroux. I escaped and came here. I have been Manon Delaroux for almost three years—sometimes I feel as though I have been her, always. But my true name is Miriam." It sounded delicious when Manon said it—_Mee-ree-ahm. _"Miriam Martin is the name I was born with. My papa used to call me _Miri_.

"That was in 1940, when it all happened. I was fifteen—I am seventeen now. But the little Catholic girl Manon was born in 1922, so I was eighteen, and could join up as a nurse and have a place to sleep and a roof over my head. My papa was old and sick—and I took care of him, so I knew how to do some things. I knew my sister was dead. I had nobody. The other girls are so happy, and all of them with friends, and mothers and fathers who love them. I didn't like them—I was jealous. But I did not know how jealous I was until I met you.

"Because you are so happy—I can tell that nothing awful has ever touched your life. You have so many people to love you and I have none. Why? Because you were born in Canada, and I was in France? Because your people are Pre-Presb-_Presbytarienne_ and I am _Juif?_ You get so many letters—I have never gotten a letter—and you have your Leslie and your Blythe you talk about and your Marshall. My papa is dead and my Nina must be, because she was not healthy. She could not survive where they took her. You have your little sister in her gold frame on your nightstand—I go and look at it, sometimes, when nobody is in the room. And I have nothing—no-one. You cannot understand. And yet—I couldn't help liking you, a little—loving you—despite myself."

Manon finished her sorrowful tale with a toss of her bright head, as if she was saying, _don't you dare be sorry for me_. But her eyes were large and hurt. Cecilia reached over and covered her hand with her own.

"I can't understand," she said. "Not really. But Manon—I have lost a sister, too." Quickly, she told Manon about Susan—about how one day the sunny little girl had been toddling around and singing—and the next, she had been dead. She spoke of her mother's long descent into despair. She spoke of how the family had packed up and come to the Island, to get away from the sad memories of the place Susan had lived and died.

"And Manon, when the war is over, I am going to take you home with me to Red Apple Farm," she said. "You'll be my sister—my sister of the heart—and you'll have a home and a family, again. They can't replace your own home and people but they will love you enough to make up for it. My people will be your people, darling. And even if you don't want to come, and you stay here, in England—well, you will always have me. You won't ever have 'no-one' again."

Manon laughed, but she was crying, too—sad tears for her lost family, but happy tears, for the future that had just opened up before her, as wide and vast as the sea. The girls threw their arms around each other and rocked back and forth. Neither of them ever forgot that night, in their whole lives—it was the time they both learned valuable things about themselves. Cecilia, that she was lucky—so very lucky—and Manon, that though life may be cruel and hard, one friend may change the course of things, forever.


	21. O Holy Night

Cecilia had a wonderful Christmas present that year. Owen called a week before the day and asked what she planned on doing for the holiday.

"Not much," she said. "We only have to work a half-shift—I suppose in the evening we'll cobble together a little supper, somehow, and open whatever presents we've scrounged for each other."

"Think again," Owen said. "I'll be in town for the day. We're going to have a nice Christmas this year, Cis—despite the war. We can't be home—but we'll keep up the traditions as best we can. I'll be coming in on the two o'clock train from Cardiff. Be there to meet me, here? And bring the prettiest nurse you can find, eh? And maybe I'll bring somebody for _you._"

Cecilia flew back to her room and told the others, with shining eyes. "We must find someplace to have our supper," she said, looking around the room. "We can't have it in the mess hall _here_. It needs to be festive."

It was Manon who volunteered that they ask the Braschis to let them have their feast in their restaurant. The Braschis readily agreed, and the Good-Time Girls—all five of them—threw themselves into preparations. They pooled their ration points and managed, to scrounge up a goose—a bit thin and bedraggled, but goose all the same. Peggy scrimped and pinched and came up with a half-pound of sugar and three packets of coffee, somehow, which Cecilia took over to Mrs. Braschi as part-payment for her services, since she would not take cash. The _signora_, kind soul that she was, used the sugar to make _pannetone_ and _struffoli_, little honey covered cakes, for the revelers. Leslie was dispatched into town to find presents for Owen, and came back with several pairs of warm socks and gloves. Cecilia, thinking of Owen's promise that _he_ would bring somebody for her, set half of them aside—the ones that would look best with Marshall's dark curls, and green eyes. For she knew, underneath, that _he_ would be the special guest Owen spoke of, and her heart thrilled at the thought of seeing him. Violet made ropes of paper chains and cut snowflakes from tissue paper to hang from the ceiling.

Cecilia and Leslie both wanted to meet Owen, and the other girls didn't want to be left out, so it was decided they would all go to the station to meet him. They dressed up in their nicest gowns and did their hair specially for the event. When Cecilia saw the outfit Manon had assembled, she laughed.

"Honey, you can't wear that," she said, looking at Manon's tartan skirt and polka-dotted blouse. "It isn't—formal enough. Why don't you borrow my blue taffeta? And Leslie will lend you her silver slippers—she's wearing her gold ones. There. You'll look a picture."

Manon changed into the borrowed garb, but managed to pin about half-a-dozen brooches to the neckline, all the same. For her part, Cecilia wore a dress of soft, hunter-green wool with a peplum jacket. She was thinking about how Marshall had complimented her, once, on a similar dress she had had in the old days. Her cheeks were so flushed with excitement as she brushed out the pin-curls that she had worn overnight, that Leslie wondered sharply if Cecilia hadn't been dipping into her contraband makeup stash.

They were a merry band to meet the tall, tanned soldier who stepped off the train. It had only been a few months since Cecilia had seen her cousin, but it might have been years, for how much like a man he looked. He stepped forward and caught her up—but Cecilia craned her neck to look around him—she must see Marshall. Owen was twirling Leslie around and around, and greeting Peggy and Violet. He seemed to do a double-take when he came to Manon—probably at the combined effect of the brooches and the violently red ribbon she had tied around her curls. Manon seemed flustered amid all the hubbub. Owen had to lean in to hear her give her name.

"Well, Manon Delaroux," he said, smiling. "I'm Owen Ford. And look here, honey—look all you girls—this is my cousin, Jake Blythe."

Jake! Only—Jake! Cecilia's heart fell, and then she felt guilty that it should. She loved Jake, and she _was_ glad to see him only—well. She supposed it was silly to think that Marshall would be thinking of her at the holidays at all. That kiss—that strange kiss that had shaken her to the core—it was only a bit of playacting, a boy's idea of a dare. And she did not care about _him_ that way, so why should it hurt if he did not feel the same toward her?

But just as she was thinking this, Jake grinned, and reached into his coat pocket, and drew out a little box.

"For you, Cecilia," he said. "From Marshall, who sends his regards, but has the bad luck to be on watch duty today."

She took the little box, restored somewhat to good humor. She would open it later, away from the lights and crowd.

The festive group of men and girls made their way to the Braschis' restaurant, where they were met by cheerful sights and delicious smells, and a phonograph playing _Adeste Fidelis_. Manon gasped when she saw, in the window, the eight candles Cecilia had placed there—her hand crept down and found Cecilia's and squeezed it, hard. The gesture, despite the excitement, was not lost on her.

They had a merry meal, punctuated by toasts and friendly banter. Cecilia and Leslie wanted to hear everything that their cousins had been up to in the past few months.

"After all is said and done, I'm glad we joined the paratroop battalion," said Owen, leaning back in his seat and wrapping an arm around Leslie, and the other loosely around the back of Manon's chair. "We made our first jump last month—and it was the closest thing to flying I think a man can get without growing wings. I liked it—Marshall did—but Jakie here didn't, so much."

Jake shuddered. "I'll do my duty but never get over my fear of heights."

The girls laughed goodnaturedly with him. "What on earth made you join the paratroopers, then?" asked Violet, as she used a chunk of bread to mop up the sauce on her plate.

"Where Owen goes, I go," said Jake lightly. "He had a hankering to be a paratrooper—well, I couldn't let him go on his own."

They talked about the other boys they had met in the army. The three Glen boys bunked together, with a fellow from outside of Toronto. "Rob Long is a fine fellow—wish you could know him. He's got the greatest way of laughing at things—can have the whole company in stitches with just one look."

"Rob Long!" cried Peggy, lighting up, "Robert Long of York, Ontario? Why—that's my _brother_! Oh, isn't it a small world?"

They all admitted that it was.

"I want to hear all about how he's doing," said Peggy, and attached herself firmly to Jake's side until she had had the whole story about how Rob was faring.

They exchanged presents, and the boys marveled over their nice new socks and warm gloves. They had brought something for the girls, too—a pair each of brand-new nylons.

"Oh!" Leslie cried, jumping up. "You can't find stockings in London for love _or_ money! Thank you boys—thank you!"

"You didn't get these off the black market, did you?" asked Cecilia anxiously. "You know Churchill says that buying black market is just like sending money directly to Hitler."

"We bought them off a fellow who'd gotten them for his girlfriend," said Owen, patting her hand. "But she wrote and broke it off with him, so he had to get rid of them somehow. Where he got them we didn't bother to ask—we decided that we'd just agree he'd finagled them through normal channels. Lighten up, Cis. We're not in the habit of buying things that fell off the back of trucks. And it's Christmas, and that was a stellar goose. I need to work it off, somehow. Have we any jazzy tunes for that phonograph? For heaven's sake, put one on, then, and one of you beauties come and cut a rug with me."

Manon took the hand he reached out and they began to dance the Balboa to _Begin the Beguine_. They moved very well together—as if they had been dancing with each other all their lives. Manon's face opened up like a flower as Owen twirled her gracefully around the room. Cecilia had never seen her look so purely, and uncomplicatedly, happy. Jake and Peggy hopped up, to continue their conversation while they danced, themselves. Leslie grabbed _Signore_ Braschi, and little Tony Braschi, aged ten, bowed formally to Violet and took her hand. Cecilia was left out but she did not mind. She helped Mrs. Braschi carry the plates to the kitchen and bring out dessert, and when that was done, she grabbed her coat and muffler and slipped out the back door into the frosty night.

She took the little box that Marshall had sent to her, and held it. He had tied a tinsel bow around it, and it glittered in the moonlight. It was just the right size box for jewelry. Blythe had sent her a pair of earrings for Christmas, and they had come in a white velvet box just like this. Suppose Marshall sent her earrings, too? Suppose—her heart froze in her chest—it was something else, another kind of bauble to wear? A more—meaningful kind. Oh, it couldn't be that, not _yet_…what a strange thing to think! What did she mean by adding 'not yet' to the end of that thought? She and Marshall weren't in love. They were only good friends. She tore the bow from the box and lifted the hinged lid to reveal the trinket within.

And she laughed, for nestled against the velvet was a pretty enamel pendant, attached to a thin gold chain. The pendant was in the shape of a red apple with a green stem and little green enamel leaves. It was just like the little russet apples that grew at Red Apple Farm. Oh, it was the perfect thing to remind her of home! She would wear it always, under the collar of her uniform, next to her heart, and carry a little bit of home with her everywhere. She leaned down and kissed the apple charm, and fastened the chain around her neck with tears in her eyes. Dear Marshall—to know that she must be missing home, and choose this for her. What a joke it was—but it was so sweet, too.

She stood facing the east, the direction of the air base in Cardiff, and sent across the bound of time and space all manner of nice thoughts—friendly thoughts—grateful thoughts. Would he feel them, wherever he was? She did not know, but she stood out there in the garden until the tip of her nose was cold and frozen feeling, thinking them. And hundreds of miles away, a boy hurrying to a watch tower stopped and turned to the west, where the evening star was rising. And for a moment on that Christmas night, two souls were linked by a tiny thread of feeling that was longer than any distance that could be measured, and stronger than anything on earth.

The boys walked the girls across the street to the dormitory after the candles in the window had finally burned down, and they had bid the Braschis a fond farewell, and many thanks. Owen walked with his hand in Manon's, whose head was drooping sleepily on his shoulder. He grinned, and leaned down to whisper in his cousin's ear:

"This little nursie you picked for me is the sweetest of all of them."

"Oh, Owen," Cecilia said tenderly. "You're too much, darling."

"Jake seems to be liking Rob Long's sister just fine, himself," Owen pointed out. "Well, Cis—how do you think our first Christmas abroad went? Was it a success?"

"Yes," said Cecilia, tilting her head up to look at the icy stars overhead. "It was an unqualified success. But oh, Owen—I do hope that this will be our _last_ Christmas abroad. I hope next year we'll be at home—and that we'll never have to have a Christmas anywhere but home, ever again."


	22. A Little Loneliness

At the hospital, men came and went so rapidly there was almost no use in getting to know them. A soldier who had been there the night before would be gone by morning, transferred to a field hospital just as you felt you were beginning to know what kind of a man he was. The long stays—even for the worst kind of wounds—were abbreviated, now. Every man was needed at the front, and every bed was needed in the hospital as the Germans began their bloody retreat across North Africa—as the war in the Atlantic reached deadly climax—as the Soviets fought valiantly to regain the ground they had lost to Hitler's armies. The faces of the sick and injured soldiers and sailors began to blue together in a haze. Occasionally Cecilia remembered one or two of them, for some reason—Sergeant Cooper's blue, blue eyes—the way that Private Worth had set up an impromptu card game between the men of the ward and the doctors—Lieutenant Harvey's big, booming laugh and the riddle Captain Todd had begun to tell them, but which they had never found the answer to, because he had been sent back to the front lines before they could hear it. But mostly, Cecilia would just remember a ceaseless stream of tired, weary faces and burning, hopeful eyes, without any names or characteristics to distinguish them from one another in her mind.

Douglas Hart was different. He came to them in the early summer of 1943. A captain in the American air force, he was shot down in a bombing run over the Ruhr region, and lived in hiding for three weeks behind enemy lines. By the time he made it safely over the border to Holland, he was ragged and thin, with a case of double pneumonia, two cracked ribs and broken ankle that had healed badly. He was sent to the hospital where his appearance made quite a sensation among the female personnel. For Captain Hart was, what you would call in the parlance, a looker, a Dillinger, or a swell—in short, he was incredibly handsome.

His brown hair waved back from his forehead and his dark blue eyes snapped like Heathcliff's as he waited for his Cathy on the moors. The nurses—even, to everyone's shock, Nurse Prowdy—fought for the chance to tend to him. Only two people seemed unmoved by his looks—Cecilia, who already felt she had too many romantic interests to justify another, and Leslie, who declared that she didn't like a man who was _that_ good-looking. But Cecilia noticed that whenever Leslie was on the ward Captain Hart found a way to call her over, and talk with her a while, and wondered if Leslie's proclamations on the subject of the captain's handsomeness were quite from-the-heart. For she had never seen Leslie blush like that before—Leslie, who had had Dr. Blackwell, and could have had Cary Grant himself, eating out of her hand without even the faintest flushing of her cheeks.

All through the spring of 1943, Leslie talked of hardly anything _but_ Captain Hart, but seemed to not notice she was doing it. "Doug—I mean, _Captain_ Hart—is from Virginia, you know," she told them over and over again. "He lives near the capital of the States, in a place called Alexandria. His family is very old and distinguished. Doug—_Captain_ Hart, I mean—was a businessman, but joined up after Pearl Harbor. His father died in the first war, and his poor mother lives by herself, since he had no brothers and sisters. He writes her every week—I help him with his letters—and he is _such_ a conscientious son. I bet all the Virginian girls are crazy for him. He looks so dark and broody but really he's a sweetie. It's too bad he's so good-looking—and he _knows_ it—or else he'd be practically perfect."

"I've never heard you complain of such a thing before, Les," said Violet laughingly. "Usually you're motto is 'the handsomer the better.'"

Leslie frowned. "I used to think that—but with Doug—Captain—oh, you know what I mean—it's different," she said. "I don't know if you could ever really feel comfortable with a man that good-looking. You'd always have to be at your very best, yourself—and you'd have to worry about all the cats who tried to steal him away from you. It wouldn't be very comfortable knowing that every woman in a room was looking at your husband and thinking you weren't pretty enough for him—and wondering how you caught him."

"Your husband?" said Cecilia, teasingly.

Leslie colored—Leslie, who never did! "A slip of the tongue," she said with practiced airiness. "Of course I don't think of him like _that_. Well, I've got to be going. It's my day off but I told Doug I'd run down and sit with him awhile. Does my hair look all right like this? And should I put on a _little _lipstick?"

"You are as sweet as pie," said Cecilia, "You are quite pretty enough to hold your own next to Captain Hart, Leslie."

"I don't care if I am or not," said Leslie, indignantly. "I only said _some girl_ would worry she wasn't—not _me_, personally."

Cecilia smiled at her cousin's angry tone. She knew—even if Leslie didn't—that her boy-crazy cousin had found her man at last.

___________________________

Cecilia smiled over Blythe letter and put it down, her head swimming with thoughts. She had just finished reading letters from Walt and Gilly, and they spoke of nothing but war, it seemed and she began to think, a little, that she did not know them very well anymore. She never had that problem with Blythe's letters. From his tone he might have been safe and sprawled upon the Redmond quadrangle instead of bivouacked in a tent in the sands of North Africa. He recorded for her the thousand whimsical fancies that came to him throughout the day—discussed news from home—apparently Joy had taken a job in the cannery at Harbour Head, which was now making propeller shafts for Canadian fighter planes. Blythe wrote that he always smiled at the thought of prim and proper Joy dressed in coveralls, with her hair in a bandanna, but he was very proud of his sister, and that showed through, too. He never asked about Cecilia's nursing life, which hurt her until she realized that Blythe did not know how to apologize for those things he had said when she had been thinking about joining up. He never wrote, either, of her promise to try to learn to love him, but Cecilia knew that it was there, nonetheless. The only reference to it, at all, was his tendency to sign his letters 'With all my love,' instead of the plain old 'Love' that he had always used before.

In this particular letter, Blythe wrote that he had had another of his poems accepted in a Toronto magazine, and Cecilia could tell that he was beginning to think perhaps that old dream of his would come true. Since he had been a little boy Blythe had wanted to memorialize that little jewel of an Island where he had spent his young years in lyric and verse. _Maybe_, he wrote, _Uncle Walter will not be the only famous poet in the family for long_.

She wished he had not written that. Underneath her certainty that Blythe _must_ come home unscathed was a little superstition that she dared not put into words: that Uncle Walter had died, and so Blythe, who was most like him in temperament and spirit, would, too.

"But I won't think like that," she told herself, with determination. She folded the letter back into the envelope it had come in, and turned to Manon, who was deep in thought, writing carefully onto an airmail form, her tongue pressed to the gap in her teeth.

"Who are _you_ writing to, dearest?" she asked, stretching lazily onto her stomach on her bed.

Manon finished her sentence, and then looked up.

"I am writing to—to Owen," she admitted, a little shyly.

Cecilia looked at her, curiously. "Really?"

"Yes. We've been writing, on and off, since New Year's."

"Oh." Cecilia sat up, startled by this pronouncement.

"Are you upset?" Manon asked, a little fearfully. "I thought, maybe, you would be. You Blythes and Fords and Merediths are so clannish—I thought you might not approve of Owen falling in love with an outsider like me."

Cecilia knew that by 'outsider' Manon meant 'Jew.' She shook her head, firmly, and swiftly. "We Blythes, Fords, and Merediths welcome kindred spirits of any race, color, or creed," she said. "They'll love you, Manon, because Owen loves you, and then they'll love you for yourself, as I do. But Manon—_does_ Owen love you? Has—has it gotten to that point, so quickly?" _And without my knowing_, she wanted to say.

Manon colored an even deeper shade of pink. "I—I think he does," she said. And then, boldly: "I know _I _love him. Oh, Cecilia—I loved him from the first time we danced, way back at Christmastime. It was like a wave breaking over me—I'd never felt it before. I don't know how to describe it—but _you_ know, darling."

"I don't think I do," Cecilia admitted, hugging her pillow to her chest. "I've had inklings of a feeling like that—but I've never experienced the sweeping sensation you're speaking of. I thought I loved Sid. I think, sometimes, that I _could_ love Blythe. But other times, I don't know. I think I could be mistaking friendliness for something deeper."

Manon watched her friend with a knowing air. She wondered how someone who was such a capable, observant little nurse could be so blind when it came to other things. For Manon had never seen Cecilia's face light up like it did when a letter from _Lieutenant_ Douglas came in the day's post. But before Manon could think of a tactful way to bring this up, Cecilia laughed, and gave a little sigh.

"All this sweethearting all around me makes me feel quite left out," she said. "You and Owen 'in love'—Violet and Dr. Williams having their little flirtation—Peggy writing chummy letters to Jake that may develop into something _more_—and Leslie losing her heart over Captain Hart." She was smiling, but underneath her smile _was_ a lonely feeling. She would like to have a sweetheart—someone to write to—someone to make her own cheeks pink. When Manon had left to do her rounds, Cecilia took a sheet of her own writing paper and sat down at the desk, chewing on her pencil as she composed a letter in her head. In an hours' time she had written down a shy little love letter—her first—a stilted, strangely formal thing that it had been confoundingly difficult to write. That began _Dear Blythe_ and ended _with all my love, Cecilia. _

She sat and sighed again as she read it over. It was so _grudgingly_ affectionate—she tried to say the right things, in one sentence, and then felt herself pulling back in the next. She wrote that she would like to walk in Rainbow Valley with Blythe—and 'feel his arms around her'—but she did not go the step further and say she wanted to feel his lips against her own. She could not shake, still, that feeling of wrongness that had fallen over her the last time they had met that way. She resorted to poetry, to say things she wasn't sure _how _to say—or even if she _should _say. But still: it was _something_—only she felt that it should have been more, if it was _really_ from the heart.

The writing of it had been hard enough, but the decision whether to send it was even more agonizing. Cecilia knew if she did, she could never take it back—that everything between her and Blythe would be forever changed. Before she had only responded to his overtures—now she was making one of her own. And she must not make it unless she meant it—it would be too cruel. She decided she wouldn't send it—but then thought of Leslie's blush before Captain Hart—of the way Manon's face had looked when she had leaned her head on Owen's shoulder, as they danced.

And she folded the letter into an envelope, addressed it, and sent it, before she could change her mind.

There! With that done, the act seemed irrevocable, and a lightness filled her limbs and her heart. She took out a fresh sheet of paper and began another letter. _Dear Marshall, _she wrote. _I'm sitting here in my dormitory room keeping congress with a new moon. Do you remember our 'new moon' nights in Four Winds? The man in the moon seemed to be chuckling along with us, as we laughed together, and tonight it seems to be laughing, still, over the remembered mirth. _

She wrote and wrote, and did not notice that she was saying, quite easily, many of the things she had meant to say in her letter to Blythe, but could not. She only knew that the terrible veil of loneliness had lifted, and the world was something of a friendly place again.


	23. A War Wedding

The weeks wore on, until it was autumn. The Allies began their invasion of Italy, which turned and declared war on Germany itself in the first weeks of October. Cecilia said goodbye to most of her patients, and was presented with a new batch to care for and tend to. Even Captain Douglas Hart was going home, across the ocean, back to the States. His leg had not healed properly despite all of their attentions and though he would be able to walk again, he was no longer fit for military service. Leslie wilted as soon as his departure was announced, and to cheer her up the other girls on the ward promptly began planning a goodbye party for him. It was not _only_ for Leslie—they really liked the Captain, and he had been with them for six months, longer than any other patient they had ever had. They would have sandwiches, and punch; they would play records and have dancing with the men who were able to dance. And everybody had scrimped and saved so that they could have cookies, in place of a cake.

Cecilia returned to her room one evening with a large stack of letters from the Glen and its environs. She was hungry for home news, and read through them, eagerly, reporting the tidbits of news she heard to Manon and Peggy and Vi.

"This one is from Cathy Douglas," she said, as Cathy's rose perfume filled the room. "Oh, no! She writes that she sat down and penned two letters, one for Gilly and one for Walt, _and then sent each boy the wrong one. _Gilly's, of course, was very flowery and effusive, because he is her fiancé, but Walt's was only friendly and a little cool. Gilly was upset and Walt was over the moon—until he looked at the name on the letter, and realized it wasn't for him." She turned over her letter from Nellie, who was determinedly cheerful despite the fact that this mix-up proved Walt though he was as much in love with Cathy as ever. Nell, like Joy, had gotten a defense job, processing scrap metal into shell casings. It was hard to imagine delicate Nellie doing factory work—until Cecilia remembered the determined quirk of her mouth during their last talk at Red Apple Farm and changed her mind. Why—there was nothing Nellie couldn't do! There was nothing even the most delicate of girls couldn't do—if she put her mind to it.

The next letter was from Una—Cecilia smiled at Mother's little epistle, toying with the apple charm she wore around her neck as she read all about that place that was still home to her, thousands of miles away, and always would be. They had had a bumper crop this year, and Dad's new apple, the product of years of cross-breeding, had been harvested for the first time. The Blythe apple, with a crisp reddish-green skin, and a sweet, tangy meat. Mother wrote that Romy was beginning to lisp little questions—like Aunt Rilla had—and her curly fair hair had gotten long enough to wear in pigtails, finally. She had a picture of Cecilia on her night table and said goodnight and kissed it, every night. Romy had been up to spend the night at Ingleside last week, and in the middle of the night had crept downstairs and rung up Red Apple Farm on the phone. "To make thure you were thtill there," Romy had explained, anxiously, when her Mother answered.

Joy wrote that she was not making as much progress on her trousseau as she had hoped, since she had to work such long hours at the cannery, but somehow it didn't seem to matter so much anymore whether she had a full linen service for twelve, and three different kinds of doilies for the back of her future sofa. "When Jacob comes home and we're married, I won't care if we live in a _shack_, as long as we're happy and whole and together." Grandfather Blythe sent a box of medical journals, Grandmother Blythe a box of books and records for the hospital, and Grandma Meredith a disturbing update on Grandpa Meredith's health, which seemed to be failing, slowly. But Grandpa Meredith himself sent a letter that was so like him that Cecilia did not worry, perhaps, as she should have. All of the people in her life had a purpose, besides loving, and Grandpa never failed to make her remember that life was a gift, and a blessing, no matter how it may seem in the moment. She read its more heart-stirring passages to the other girls, and was just folding it back into its envelope when Leslie burst in the room.

"There's been a change of plans for tomorrow's going away party," she said, breathless, her eyes sparkling and her hair escaping from its net in little wisps.

"Oh!" Violet cried. "I _knew_ Nurse Prowdy would change her mind and not let us have it, after all. She is _no fun_. Poor Captain Hart—he'll be so disappointed."

"She has done nothing of the sort," Leslie said. "And poor Captain Hart shouldn't be feeling too badly. I've promised to marry him at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon, and so we must change everything from going-away fete to wedding celebration. That's all."

Cecilia dropped her letter with a shock. She had expected Leslie to make some sort of love-declaration to the Captain before he went home—but she had never expected that they would get _married_.

"Leslie," she gasped. "Are you in your right mind?"

"I'm in my rightest of right minds," Leslie said. "I love Doug and he loves me and today when I went down this morning and told him I couldn't bear if he left without me, he said, 'Then come _with_ me, as my wife.' I said yes right away, of course. The chaplain is coming tomorrow and I went out and got our wedding license this afternoon. But I need a dress and a bouquet and I'd like a _little _bit of pomp, if it can be arranged. Not a lot—I know there's a war on—but I won't feel really married unless there's some sort of fuss."

"Aunt Persis," breathed Cecilia, the powers of speech still fled from her. "And Uncle Carl…"

"Are as happy for me as if it were their own wedding," said Leslie certainly. "I've been writing to Mother about Doug for months, and when I wired her the news today she sent back a cable: 'Finally,' it read. They'll be a bit broken up to have me in Virginia—it's so far—but not _that_ far, when you consider everything. And I don't care where I live as long as Doug is there."

Cecilia felt her eyes fill up with tears. One moment ago Leslie had been by her side with no danger of leaving—and now she was going to move to Virginia, and live thousands of miles away. Leslie saw her cousin's face and forgot her own excitement for a minute. She knelt down next to Cecilia, and wiped away her tears.

"Darling," she said. "I don't want to leave you, but I've got to. I couldn't let him go—I am his wife, already, in my heart—I always have been. I was just waiting for him to find me, to make it official. I love him—_love him_. And I'll be with you in spirit—and when this war is over we'll visit each other often—and I'm going to keep on nursing, in the States. It's just that I will only have the one patient. Cecilia—be glad for me. _Please_ be glad for me!"

Cecilia looked down into Leslie's beaming face. She had never seen it look so certainly happy before. At the sight of it, she threw her cares to the wind, and leaned down and kissed the flushed cheeks.

"I am happy for you," she said, throwing herself into the spirit of things. What Leslie was doing took a lot of courage—so she could have a little, herself. "Now, what are you going to wear tomorrow? There's no time to get you a proper dress—but my gray suit will fit you, and Peggy has that little white feathered hat that you could borrow. And do you have a ring? And the Braschis have some late roses growing in your yard that I'm sure they'll let us have for a bouquet."

"Red roses," said Leslie. "For love triumphant. I couldn't have any other color, you know."

So the going-away party the next day was rapidly changed into a wedding party. The head nurses were notified, and got caught up in the excitement of it. It had been long years of war for most of them, and they reveled in a sense of celebration, for once. They liked Leslie—despite her antics—and liked Captain Hart, too. Nurse Prowdy promised to come up with a wedding-cake somehow, and Dr. Blackwell, the spurned suitor, put his hurt feelings aside and found a case of (what Cecilia feared was) black market champagne.

Leslie stood in her borrowed bridal finery as Manon knelt and pinned up the hem of Cecilia's suit. She looked equal parts delighted and mournful.

"What is it?" Cecilia asked.

"Oh," Leslie laughed. "I just wish—I always thought my wedding would be a big family affair. And you're here, to be my bridesmaid—but I wanted to be surrounded by family on my wedding day. Well, there's no use howling for the moon, and I mean to be a good, uncomplaining sort of wife. See, Manon? I didn't even kick at you when you just pricked me with that pin."

Cecilia flew downstairs and got Owen on the long-distance.

"Can you and Jake find a way to be in town tomorrow at six?" she asked him, and explained the whole situation.

Owen did find a way. He appeared at the hospital the next afternoon with Jake and another in tow. Cecilia sprang up when she saw who it was.

"Marshall!" she cried, running to greet him.

He caught her and he swung her around, and she laid her head on his shoulder and for a moment the whole world seemed to stop. Then she wanted to look at him again—was it _really_ him?—and so she pulled back and looked up into his face, and laughed.

"I'm glad you're here," she said, in a businesslike way, to cover her feelings. "We need every pair of hands we can get. Owen and Manon—I need you to go into town and pick up the rings. Jake, you'll help us set up downstairs—and Marshall, you can go collect the roses from the Braschis. And girls, we need to go and get Nurse Prowdy's cake and inform the chaplain that Leslie wants a change to the wedding vows. She doesn't want to promise to 'obey' anybody—she says she's done with taking orders—and Captain Hart says he's done with giving them. So it will all work out in the end."

Everybody went and did these things as they were bidden, and at three o'clock on the nose, all of the men who could be moved downstairs were, and all of the nurses and doctors who were not in surgery were assembled with them. The girls had dressed in their bridal finery—they were the bridesmaids—and Marshall and Jake, who had met the Captain and promised to be his groomsmen, were waiting to walk them in to the first strains of the music that Dr. Blackwell was to put on the phonograph. Only Manon and Owen were missing, still, and Cecilia frowned. How long could it take to pick up two rings from the jewelers? Just when it seemed they couldn't wait another moment—Leslie and her new husband were leaving in a matter of hours—the two stragglers came dashing in, full of some secret air of mystery. Manon's eyes were sparkling, and Cecilia caught her by the arm as they lined up to go in.

"What has happened?" she asked, but Manon waved her off. The music started, and the girls marched in, to the cheers and applause of the soldiers, sailors, doctors and nurses.

It was a matter-of-fact wedding, and it should have _felt_ matter-of-fact, but it did not. They had all been so starved for romance, and here was some of it. And the love that Leslie and the Captain had for one another was magnificent to behold—Cecilia thought of Ruth's words to Naomi, those changeless words of love. 'Wherever you goeth, I will go—your people shall be my people.' Without quite meaning to, she began to cry, but not at the thought of losing Leslie. She would gladly lose Leslie if it meant that her cousin could be loved like _this_. It was only so beautiful—and she wished everybody, Blythe and Joy and Mother and Dad and Aunt Persis and Uncle Carl—could be there to see it. And—she _did_ wonder if anybody would ever look at her so tenderly, as though she were a thing to be treasured. She was so busy watching the bride and groom that she did not see that someone _was_ watching her that way, at just that moment.

They had a hurried reception—the train to the boat station left at six. Cake and toasts and dancing—Cecilia danced with Marshall, and Jake, and the groom himself, but Owen and Manon did not leave each others' arms all night. The girls danced with the soldiers, and the soldiers danced with the head nurses. Finally it was time to take Leslie upstairs and help her get her traveling clothes on.

"Oh—oh—I can't believe it," Leslie said, looking not at the thin gold band on her finger, but at the corner of the room where she had slept for over a year. It was right next to Cecilia's bed—sometimes Leslie had gotten up and crawled in with Cecilia, the way she had used to when they had been girls together in Montreal. Her lips trembled and she began to cry. "I can't—believe—it will be so long before we see each other again. And—suppose we never do? It is so far away—and it's not _home_—and I won't know anybody."

Cecilia could not let them part with tears. "You know Doug," she pointed out. "And as for us not seeing each other—you said that same thing when I left Montreal, Leslie. And look what friends we are, years later. We two together are like one person, in some ways—Grandpa Meredith always called us 'light' and 'dark'—he said I was the heart and you were the soul—the soul of sweetness and good humour and _fun_. Oh, Leslie, Leslie, my mind is taking me back—do you remember when you wrote to me once, years ago, that you could never marry a man who wasn't wicked and bad? And now you have gone and married the kindest, nicest, gentlest man around. What a joke on you, darling!"

"Doug Hart is the best man in the world and I love him for it," cried Leslie, restored to her old self once again. "And girls—girls—I'm _Mrs. _Hart! Leslie Hart is going to love life even more than Leslie Meredith did, I promise you that!"

The Glen St. Mary boys and the Good Time Girls accompanied the newlyweds to the station, where they would catch a train to meet their boat. They stood on the platform and waved their friends out of sight, and then paired off into little groups of twos and threes. Manon and Owen walked together—of course—and Jake took an arm of Peggy and Violet—and Cecilia was left walking with Marshall. She tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and looked up at him. It was both a blessing and a pain to have him here—to have all the boys here—because they must be leaving in a few hours, too, going back to the base in Wales.

"You're wearing my necklace," Marshall said, in a low voice—it did not really go with her navy blue finery, but he could not know that she rarely took it off. Cecilia's hand crept up to her milky throat, and she fingered the charm absently.

"Yes, your necklace," she said, "And Blythe's earrings." She touched her earlobes where the little pearls hung, swinging, against her dark hair. And she was so lost in thought that she did not see Marshall's face darken, and was so lost for the rest of the night that she did not notice his friendly kissed was a little cool upon her cheek. She was thinking of Leslie and the Captain going off to begin their new lives together—and she did not stop to think that perhaps something was beginning in her own.


	24. Dark Days

In late December of 1943, Cecilia received a letter from Joy which changed everything for her. She had seen firsthand the horrors of war, but still they seemed like things that happened to other people—not to those she loved. Walt's minor wound was a distant memory, and she had assumed that with it her family had somehow been given reprieve by it. One of their own had been in peril—and had survived it, and had somehow taken the blow so that no other one close to her would have to. But through Joy's letter she learned that her way of thinking had not only been superstitious, but wrong-headed. There was so much pain and suffering in the world that there was surely enough to go around, and one near-brush did not stave of future harm.

"Dear Cecilia," Joy wrote, and Cecilia could tell already from her writing on the page that something was wrong. It was not her usual careful flowery script, but blunt and rushed and harried-looking. "You wrote and told me you were hungry for Christmas cheer, and asked for me to send some to you. Well, you shall have to get it from someone else. I have none for you. This will not be a merry Christmas for me, and I don't expect any other will be, either. I know you are shaking your head at me, thinking me dejected and faithless. Well, I am not. I _had_ faith—I worked and planned and hoped—I didn't let the wire reports or the casualty lists to get me down. And what did it get me, in the end?

"Jacob was wounded in Italy, on 29 November. The jeep he was driving went over a mine, and it was blown to pieces, and so was he. They managed to put him back together but he has lost most of his hearing in his right ear, and worse than that, he has lost his right leg. For a while it looked as though they would be able to save it, he said, but in the end they couldn't. So he will never walk again. 'At least he is alive,' Mother said to me, when we heard. And that is true—he _is_ alive. But he will never have his own fishing boat, like he wanted and always dreamed of having. I'm not sure, to tell you the truth, _what_ work he can do, now. Miller Douglas worked in a store after he lost his leg in the Great War, but Jacob isn't good with figures as Mr. Douglas was. His Penhallow uncle has offered him a job in his bank, but Jacob isn't a banking sort of fellow, and I think his _soul_ will die if he's cooped up indoors all day for forty years. Still, I thought it would be all right. Jacob will get a pension, and I thought of my teaching certificate from Queen's. It would be all right, and I'd go out to work, then. I planned it all out in my head, Cecilia. _I really believed I could make it work. _

"I thought it would be all right—until I got Jacob's letter yesterday. He has been very chilly to me since it happened, but I didn't hold it against him. I thought once the shock wore off, we'd find a way past it, together. But I was wrong. Jacob didn't say much in his letter besides that he is very confused about the direction his life is now headed. The only thing he seemed very certain of at all was that he wished to call off our engagement. He says he doesn't love me as he once did; that our time apart has not brought me closer to him, as it has him for me. He says he feels as if he doesn't know me at all anymore, and of course he can't be married to someone he doesn't know.

"How am I to argue with that? If he only said he wasn't sure, I could try to convince him. But to not love me anymore—what can I say to him? Nothing. So our engagement is off, and I am not to be Mrs. Jacob Penhallow as I thought—as I always planned I would be since that day, five years ago, now, when I first saw him, and knew I loved him.

"He wrote that I might keep the ring as a 'token of his gratitude.' He writes that he is very grateful to me for sending him socks and things, and letters, and keeping his spirits up these past few years. As if I was only some pen-pal, or old auntie! Cecilia, I have written him every day for over a year now that I loved him, and meant it. And now he is _grateful_?

"I don't want his gratitude. So I took the ring over to Rose River, to leave at his father's house for when he comes home. Because he is coming home, early next year. I saw his sister Becky while I was there, and she was very cold to me. No doubt Jacob has written them all many times about what a nuisance I am. I am sure they know all about his true feelings. Becky wouldn't look at me as I gave her the ring, and I thought that she was _glad_ I wasn't to be her sister after all. My pride started to smart—you know that is my one flaw, I inherited it from Mother. And so I was just as cold to her as she was to me, and we had a nasty little meeting. When once we threw our arms around each other and called each other 'sister!'

"I announced the engagement at family dinner last week. Our family dinners at Ingleside now are very stupid, tiny little things. All the men were at a civilian defense meeting so it was only the aunts and Grandmother and silly little Nancy and the babies. Aunt Penny was there with baby Iris—do you know, I hate looking at little Iris, now? She is so wee and golden and once I thought when I looked at her that it wouldn't be very long before I had a little girl just like her. But now I see that it will never be. I can't think I will ever love anybody else as I loved Jacob—but then, sometimes, I think I will, and that hurts more.

"Each of the aunts had a piece of advice or wisdom for me—a perverse version of the fairy stepmothers in _Sleeping Beauty_. Aunt Rilla told me that there was more than one man for every girl—Aunt Rilla, who planned on being an old maid, if Uncle Ken did not come back to her. Aunt Faith told me that perhaps Jacob would come around, but she said it very doubtfully because she knows he won't. Mother herself told me that I shouldn't be focusing on dreams when there were realities to be faced in the present moment—Mother, who is the dreamiest person I know! Only Aunt Una looked sympathetic. 'Cry if you want to,' she said. 'Come to Red Apple Farm to do it, and nobody will disturb you or try to make you feel better.' Cecilia, you don't _know_ how lucky you are to have a mother like that. Everyone but her seems to be conspiring against me, at all times. Even the _radio_ plays such terrible songs: _waiting for my man to come home, _and _kiss me once and kiss me twice and kiss me once again, it's been a long, long time. _Jacob will come home but I won't be allowed to see him—and it will indeed be a long time before I'll kiss him again!

"And then I hear of Leslie's marriage all the time. Everyone was so up in a fuss over it. I don't like knowing Leslie has the man of her dreams when I shall never have mine. I suppose that makes me cruel but I don't care. You know I've never liked Leslie, even if you do, because she said such nasty things about my mother not being as pretty as hers, years ago. Leslie has always flitted from one man to the next and she is rewarded with a husband, when I stayed steady and true to my man for years, and now he doesn't want me.

"Oh, Cecilia, _why_ doesn't he want me? I lay awake at night, every night, and wonder what it is I did wrong. Maybe he thought I wasn't patriotic enough, because I didn't want him to go, at first? And I wrote him every day—was that too stifling? You remember how we used to laugh at those women's magazines that said to be 'aloof' and 'distant' and to 'cultivate an air of mystery.' I used to laugh at them, for being so silly—why should you pretend to be something that you aren't? But now I see that I was the stupid one, by showing too plainly what I felt and driving Jacob away. I cringe when I think how he must have thought me a _nuisance_—and been _embarrassed_ by the letters I wrote him so frequently. Cecilia, I am wretched, wretched with shame.

"And the worst part is that now I don't know what I am working for. Before I had a concrete idea: I was working, working my fingers to the bone in that stupid cannery, helping the war effort and making a little money to set aside as a nest egg for when the war was over and Jacob and I would get married. Now, the war will still be over sometime—but when it is I'll have to watch everybody else I know come home and fall in love and start families while I will just be stuck in the mud. Cathy Douglas patted my hand last week at prayer meeting and said, 'Cheer up—maybe you and Jacob wouldn't have stayed together even without the war.' But I know we would have. I blame this war for everything—my unhappiness, the unhappiness of so many others. It's a cancer on the world. We'll never be over it, if we lived to be a thousand years old. I'm a bitter person now, Cecilia, and cruel: so that is why I am going to tell you this next thing. I want there to be someone as unhappy as I am and I don't care if it's you, that I love.

"Cecilia, do you remember how Owen confessed he was the one who told Sid Gardiner about your kiss with Blythe, and how that piece of information ended your relationship with Sid? Well—it wasn't Owen, even indirectly. Sid knew it before he heard it from Glenn Elliott. He knew—because Blythe told him. Wrote him, actually. He was desperate for you not to marry Sid, and so he let Sid know that you had not been faithful. What do you think about that? Your 'dear, darling' Blythe is a backstabber and a turncoat, and I don't care if you know—I think you _should_ know. I know you're over Sid now, but you were happy enough when you were with him. How does it feel to know that the one you trusted the most was the cause of all that pain that followed?

"Take the feeling you're feeling now and multiply it, and you will know exactly how I am feeling.

"Signed, though I hate to write it, because it cannot be _my_ name,

"JOY."

Cecilia laid down the letter, her mind blazing with pain. Pain for her cousin's predicament—hurt at Joy's bitterness—worried for her health—and then, underneath that, a betrayal that was like a knife. _Blythe_ had told Sid? Blythe? It did not matter that she and Sid would not have suited one another—he should not have done it. Even if he loved her, and was jealous, it was something that could not be forgiven.

"I never even suspected," she whispered. "I was the stupid one."

She thought back over all her time with Blythe, over the years. She took away the easy companionship, the deep friendship, and looked at all the places where he had been cruel and jealous. And there were many. She remembered how he had shown Joy their secret place, long ago—she remembered how he had not wanted her to be a doctor, and had shot her dream through with arrows. She remembered how he had remarked, from time to time, that she should not wear that dress or should wear her hair, so. Offhand—or imperious? She crumpled Joy's letter up into a ball. "I am _not_ a thing to be _owned_!"

She thought of her promise to Blythe, that she would try to love him. Well, she would break her promise, now! He did not deserve her love. And she _could not_ love him if this is who he really was. She threw herself on her cot and began to weep, terribly—for Joy, for poor Jacob, for Blythe's bad behavior, and for herself. These were dark days for them all. The days were so short—the night was so long.

It was hard to believe they would ever see the sun again.


	25. The Gathering Storm

The first month of 1944 marked the first German attack against London since the Battle of Britain. For four months, from January to May, Hitler's _Luftwaffe _laid waste to the British capital, in another attempt to incapacitate the city permanently. Each bombing run was named by the Nazis after a German city that had been devastated by Allied shells: Berlin, Hamburg, Hannover. All Britons had dared to breathe easier in the years that followed the strife of 1940; now they found themselves under siege again.

Cecilia was making her rounds when she heard the first of the air-raid sirens, stretching long and thin on the night air, rising and carrying to a fever pitch. _A drill? _she thought, absently, as she inserted a thermometer between a soldier's lips. There had been weekly drills since she had started at the hospital, just in case something should happen. But it was an odd time for a drill, she thought, the middle of the night—usually they were planned for day, or evening, so that the most number of people might participate.

But as she was thinking it there was an explosion in the next city block—a deafening sound, which shook the floor under her feet. The lights flickered, and everyone cried out as one, and there was a whirling moment of panic. Cecilia closed her eyes, as another shell sounded somewhere very nearby. She crouched, instinctually, as the walls shook again. There was a viselike grip around her arm—she opened her eyes—Manon was pulling her up. She gave her a little shake—Manon had been at the hospital during the Blitz.

"Get all the men who can walk downstairs to the shelter," she ordered, in a very un-Manonlike tone. "Come _on_. _Vite! _Quickly!"

Cecilia felt life return to her limbs at her friend's businesslike tone. She helped the shakiest of the men from their beds, and let them lean on her as she walked them to the stairs that led down to the shelter in the hospital basement. Outside she heard the sudden patter of the anti-aircraft guns that were stationed around the city center. The shells continued to fall, sounding like the growls of some terrible beast. The air raid siren screamed and screamed and then, suddenly, was dizzyingly silent, and that hot, pressing silence was worse because in it she could hear the panic of the others. Upstairs people were calling _help, help _and _all hands on deck_ and she knew she must go back up and help more men descend to shelter. But for a moment she could not make herself move. What was it Gilly had written, once? 'If you can _hear_ the whistle of the shell, you're in trouble.' What if she was to hear it? What if she was to be—killed?

"Mother, mother," she whispered, dropping her head into her hands, overcome with fear.

But still, she made herself go up the stairs on her shaking legs and help another group of patients to shelter. And then she went up again—and again. Finally Manon came down the stairs with a man leaning heavily on her arm.

"That's it," she said to Nurse Prowdy. "The others cannot be moved. Duck and cover, fellas," she called to the men. "We're in for a long night."

You could tell the veterans from the ones who had never been in battle before. Cecilia and a few others jumped at every blast, but across the room, in the dim light, some men were singing, and playing cards. Whenever there was a particularly loud and close explosion, a group of Americans began singing the words to their national anthem in a raucus tone: _and the rockets' red glare! The bombs bursting in air…_

Cecilia felt herself begin to sweat. Their shelter was not a good one, chosen for size, instead of safety. A direct hit on the hospital could obliterate it—and them—entirely. Their bodies would not be found—they would simply cease to exist in a blaze of heat and fury. Or else they would be trapped under the rubble until they slowly suffocated. Oh, why had she ever bothered to come overseas? Why hadn't she stayed at home, where it was safe? And how had the Brits stood this for months and months? Surely she would die, or go mad. She could not stand it—she could not.

"You will learn to," Manon said, her breath warm against Cecilia's ear. "It gets easier every time."

"I can't imagine that." Cecilia shook so much that Manon had to wrap her arms around her, to keep her still. "Oh, Manon—this can't be the same world that I was born into, that I've lived in for my whole life. _That_ was a nice place. This is—hell. There can't be such a place as Red Apple Farm or Ingleside in the same world where _this_ can happen? Won't it ever stop? Won't it _ever_ stop?"

It did stop, shortly before dawn. As suddenly as the storm had descended it rolled back. The explosions ceased—the engines droned off into the distance—the ack-ack of the guns tapered off. They stayed huddled in the shelter until the siren sounded again, the all-clear. Cecilia climbed the steps, blearily exhausted, and headed for the dormitory, for her bed. But Peggy, who had remained upstairs through the whole night, in surgery, caught Cecilia and drew her back.

"No sleep tonight," she said, and Cecilia soon saw why. In a trickle that became a flood, the ambulances began to ferry in casualties from all over the city. People who had not been able to find shelter had been burned and battered by debris and they must fix them up. She worked at her duties until her hands were numb with exhaustion, and still there was more work to be done. She would be surprised, later, to find that from a military perspective, that night's raid had been a failure. Most of the German planes had missed their marks—a mistake the Nazis would not repeat in the long weeks of similar nights that followed.

Aunt Rilla always said that the body grows slowly and steadily, but the soul grows by leaps and bounds; it may come to its full stature in an hour.+ Through all of her months of work, Cecilia's soul had progressed incrementally toward womanhood. But from that terrible night on, Cecilia Blythe's soul was the soul of a woman in its capacity for suffering, for strength, for endurance.+ She would never be able to think of herself as a girl again.

She learned that it was impossible to hold a grudge under such conditions, and she readily forgave Joy her cruelty of her last letter, and Blythe his betrayal of her first romance. She was practical—she knew that she might be hurt, or even killed—and she did not want to die with a coldness on her conscience. And she learned, also, that Manon had been right: a body could, as Judy Plum of Silver Bush had once said, get used to anything—even being hanged. Even nights upon nights of torture and strife. She learned to take the air-raid sirens coolly, and to move matter-of-factly in her duties when she heard them. She learned to block the bombs out and sleep down in the shelter, getting what little rest she could before the influx of new wounded and injured came in. She even learned to behave calmly on the nights when she was scheduled for surgery, and could not join the others in the basement. So she might die? Well—at least she would end her life _usefully_, and in service to others. She put her own worry aside and wrote reassuring letters home, pooh-poohing the damage and the danger. She would not have Mother and Dad worried over her, on top of everything else. She could deliver them from that, at least. Slowly the bombings tapered off and all was still for a night—then two—then a week. Then another. But Cecilia never lost that horrible, heavy fear—never quite completely—and something in her soul was always waiting for it to begin again. It was only that she learned not to be paralyzed by it, to do her best no matter her fear.

It was to this new womanly Cecilia that Marshall's letter came in late May. Cecilia the girl would have only thought it very friendly. Cecilia the woman could not deny that something stirred in her whenever she thought of Marshall Douglas—and their kiss—whenever that new song by Jimmy Dorsey played:

_Your green eyes with their soft lights_

_Your eyes that promise sweet nights_

_Bring to my soul a longing_

_A thirst for love divine_…

She had the idea before evening opening it that she must read his letter in a place that reminded her of him. She could not read it in her little room, or in the cafeteria. It would not do. So she took her envelope and brought it out to the park across the street from the dormitory.

It had once been a pretty little park with a view of the London skyline, but now it was brown and pathetic looking. It should have been teeming with Mayflowers, but the trees were scorched and the grass dead. You could see the smoking rubble of the church in the next block. But if you tilted your head up, the sky was still blue, and studded with traveling clouds.

_Cecilia_, Marshall had written, without even a greeting; urgently, as though he had simply picked up the paper and started writing before he lost his nerve,

_We are moving to Aldbourne tomorrow and I suppose you will be able to discern what that means for us from there. Finally, after two years of training, we'll be on our way to the front. The Big Push, they called it in the Great War. I thought I would be afraid when our call came, but it turns out I'm not. I'm only glad the waiting is over, and eager to do my duty at last. I hope I'll acquit myself well—not with honor, but at least in a way that would make me deserving of the peace that will come after—even if I'm not around for it. I don't think it will come to that. But if it does, I'm ready and willing and I'll meet it haply. I want you to know that, and reassure mother and the girls if you ever need to. I wrote to them, last night, and said most of the same things to them, but there is something in particular I want to ask of you, something I want you to do for me. _

_Do you remember the night we said goodbye in the orchard at Red Apple? You promised me, before I went—I _made_ you promise_—_that you wouldn't kiss anybody else until I came back to do it again. I want you to forget all about that, now. I see it was a selfish thing to ask, and you're a sentimental sort, I know. I don't suppose I mean very much to you, in _that_ way, but I'm afraid that if anything did happen to me you'd feel compelled to keep that promise. I want to think of you always happy, even if it means that you'll be kissing some other fellow. _

_But know this: you'll always be the only one for me. _

_M.D._

Cecilia raised her fingertips to her lips and pressed them to stop them shaking. But she was smiling, too. So Marshall had spoken, finally, that thing she had always suspected: that he loved her. She had thought he might, since that kiss. Oh, it wasn't much in the way of a love letter—there was no flowery prose—it was short and matter-of-fact, just like he was. And yet, for all that, there was something in it that made it more than any other letter of its kind should be. He put no demands on her, no pressures. He simply held his love out, like a gift for her to take or pass by. And perhaps she would be able to take it, someday, and give her own love back. But then Cecilia frowned, thinking of her promise to Blythe. She was not entirely free to give her love in turn, was she? She couldn't be, when Blythe was still hoping that she would learn to love him in the end.

She had one other letter, from Owen, which she opened and read, to quell her troubled thoughts. His letter was full of the same news Marshall had written—he was shipping out, and wanted her to not worry about him, for he was ready to fight. But at the end was a post-script that made her head whirl.

_If anything should happen to me, you will watch over Manon, won't you? I love her very much, Cis, and I don't think she could bear to lose anybody else. She is—well, I won't write it because I told her I wouldn't. She'll want to tell you herself. But you'll take care of her—and keep by her side, won't you? She'll need you, if it should come to that. _

It was an ominous tone to end on, and the sweetness of Marshall's letter was quite forgotten, now. Suppose something should happen to one of their bright, happy boys? She thought of Owen's fair curls matted with blood—Blythe's beautiful face wrenched in pain—Marshall's green eyes, his green eyes that she saw before her, sometimes, as clearly as if he was there with her—she saw those eyes dull and lifeless in death.

"Oh, no!" she cried, a chill shuddering through her body. She squeezed her eyes shut. "I won't think of it—I won't."

It was only the stress and strain of the past few months—it was only that the boys had written her with their plans. It would not actually happen. It _couldn't_.

When Cecilia tilted her head up again to look at the sky she found it cloudless and blue as before. But something was coming even if she could not see it—a storm was gathering. When it would break and where it would hit, and what damage it would do remained yet to be seen. Cecilia shivered—and for all her newfound wisdom, felt just like a little girl again.

_____________________

A/N: the parts marked by a + sign are taken from Rilla of Ingleside, by LM Montgomery.


	26. A Clamor of Bells

For months the entire Western world had been waiting for the 'Big Push' Marshall had written about in his letter to Cecilia. They knew that the Allies would invade France—but when? Millions of eyes were fixed on a narrow sliver of Norman coast. When would it happen—when—and how many lives would it cost?

It must happen soon. Cecilia knew that, from the letters she had received, and from the mysterious quiet that fell over the city of London, which was eerily empty of servicemen. All able-bodies had been called back to duty, and all leaves had been suspended. People hurried through the streets, back to their warm kitchens and wirelesses, to wait for news. Cecilia and the other girls gathered around the radio in the dormitory to hear Churchill's address. _We shall fight in France …we shall fight on the beaches…we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be. We shall never surrender. _Tears crept into her eyes, and she thought of another Island, dearer to her than any other sliver of land on earth, and she rallied in her heart at the rousing words. She knew why they must risk the cost—but oh, how many of their boys would be lost to them?

Walt was in Italy, but Gilly and Marshall and Jake and Owen would surely be there. And Uncle Bruce—and Jims Anderson—and Blythe. Peggy's brother Rob was going, and Nurse Prowdy's eldest son, and Dr. Blackwell's nephew and Violet's father. And so many of the boys they had tended through the years would be there, struggling, and dying, on that beachhead. They would fall on the sand and their blood would stain the water. One day's work could erase the weeks of care that they had lavished on these men—could erase them from the earth, forever.

But not forever. Cecilia squared her shoulders and held her chin high. Mother had sent to her, perhaps discerning that she would need it, Uncle Walter's last letter, and the words had brought strength to Cecilia. _It isn't only the living who are fighting_, Cecilia's boy-uncle, who had been so much like Blythe, had written. _The dead are fighting too, and such an army _cannot_ be defeated_. She wore that hope-inspiring, faithful little letter in her skirt pocket, taking it out many times a day to scan its faded lines. And they never failed to bring her courage—but they did not, exactly, bring her comfort. A litany of names rang in her ears all through the day: _Marshall and Gil and Jake and Bruce and Owen and Jims and Blythe_. Only keep them safe, O God, and I shall ask You nothing else.

Cecilia woke in the wee hours of the morning of 6 June—she startled awake in a silence so deafening that she immediately wondered what had woken her. She had been on call the night before and had only just gotten to sleep. She should have slept soundly for six hours straight, but here she was awake, for some unfathomable reason, and tinglingly alert. The hair on her arms raised up—and she heard, through her open window, the sound that had woken her. The clamor of bells—ringing all over the city in anxious peals. She knew at once what they meant, without being told. The invasion had begun.

It was a white-lipped, restless sort of day. Everyone craved news, but there was little to be had. By midday they knew that a strip of heavily-occupied coast in Normandy was being tried for by the Allies. A stunning number of sailors, soldiers and airmen had crossed over the Channel in the night, and were now fighting—and dying—on foreign sands. By the end of the day came the news that five beachheads had been taken; two each by the Americans and Brits, and one little blood-hallowed patch of ground, known as Juno Beach, by the Canadians.

"Oh God, oh God," whispered Cecilia, tense from head to foot. But Manon refused to be worried. She was full of hope and determined cheer, and jubilant at the thought of her homeland being rescued from German hands.

"Owen is in France right now," she said. "Imagine that! We always planned to go there together one day. And we still will, when this war is over. And being there together in peacetime will take the sting out of this day. Oh, _Cecile_! My country shall no oppression no longer. _Vive la France_! _Vive _Eisenhower! And _vive _Churchill!"

Speaking of that latter esteemed personage, every patient, doctor, and nurse in the hospital listening with straining ears to his speech to Parliament that day. The Prime Minister warned them to be cautious. _It is a most serious time we enter upon. Thank God, we enter upon it with our great Allies all in good heart and in good friendship_.

"That means they must expect a lot of casualties," said Peggy, whose nose and eyes were suspiciously red. "I'm going back to the dorm and I'm going to sit up all night and listen to reports in the lounge. I heard a rumor that the Allies are as far inland as Caen. I won't sleep a wink tonight until I know for sure. Oh, girls, we've waited so long these past four years—this war has been nothing _but_ waiting—but this day is worse for that than all the others combined."

Cecilia wanted desperately to sit up but she was exhausted from the strain of the day and so she hied herself to bed. Manon came with her, and curled up on Cecilia's bed as she was sometimes wont to do.

"I'm sure I'll have nightmares if I sleep alone," she shuddered. "It is easy to be _hopeful_ in the day—but at night it is much harder.

"I will be glad for the company on a night like this," said Cecilia. "Oh, Manon, it's the closest thing to hell, I think, to not know where or how the people you love are. Even if they are all well in body I am sure they have seen, today, things that have made them sick at heart. I wonder that I _can _think of sleeping—but here I am yawning—tonight I shall be glad for sleep because it will bring forgetfulness."

Both girls dropped off, but for the second night in a row, Cecilia was awoken suddenly by what seemed like absolutely nothing. She couldn't have been asleep for very long. The sky was still pitch-black outside her window. Next to her in bed Manon stirred, her golden curls tangled on the pillow.

"What is that I hear?" Manon murmured. "That—_music_. What a strange melody! Where is it coming from?"

Cecilia listened—and there it was, faint but discernible, the high, weird, fluted music Manon had spoken of. Goosebumps came out on her skin, and her heart squeezed painfull in her chest. She thought of Uncle Walter's letter, which she had read over at least a half-a-dozen times that day. _I saw the Piper coming down the Valley with a shadowy host behind him—I saw him marching across No-man's-land from our trenches to the German trenches_. _I heard his music and then—he was gone_. Cecilia knew at once it was the Piper's music she heard—who among their boys was following his call, tonight?

"It is the bells, again," she told Manon, a quiver of fear passing through her. "Go back to sleep."

Manon fell into a fitful slumber, but Cecilia did not sleep a wink that night. She lay there, in her narrow bed, with her arms around the sweet, slight little girl who had become, in the past two years, her close friend. So close that Cecilia wanted to shield her from any pain—wanted to protect her—and set those wrongs in her past to rights, if she could. She recalled the promise Owen had wanted her to make—that she would take care of Manon, until he should come home to do it, himself. She watched the sky outside the window gray and pinken with dawn, but still that strange melody lingered in her ears, even as her lips moved in a prayer.

In the morning they learned that ten-thousand casualties had been the price of the previous days' victory. Almost a thousand of them were Canadian. And they would not know for days—maybe even weeks—if any of their own had fallen.

"How will we bear it?" Cecilia asked. "Even now Blythe—or Marshall—"

She could not finish that unholy thought. "I thought our waiting would be over," she said.

Violet wound her arm around Cecilia's neck. "Now we wait some more," she said. "It won't be so very hard. Remember girls—we're professionals at waiting. We've been doing it for years."

But Cecilia did not have very long to wait for one piece of news. At dawn that day, Nan Meredith had been awakened by the ring of the phone—Joy went down to the Glen telegraph office to send it onwards, over the Atlantic. Private Blythe Meredith had been in the first wave to go ashore on Juno Beach, when he had been shot in the back. He hovered, even now, between life and death. And Cecilia learned that there were things far worse than waiting.


	27. One for Sorrow

All around her the world was rejoicing, but Cecilia could not join them. How could she? Yes, the Allies were pushing forward, ever forward, into France. Yes, more ground was won by them each day. But she could not consider the little triumphs. All she could think of was Blythe, hanging somewhere between life and death by a thin, gossamer thread. Suppose that thread should be cut, and he should be taken from her? There was nothing worse than that. She would gladly see Hitler and Hirohito prevail—but she could not have Blythe dead, and gone from her.

Suppose he did not die—suppose he lived? The bullet had struck him in the back—that was all she knew—if she could only know _where_. Was there a chance he might not walk again? Would he be confined to a wheelchair for his whole life? He might live, then—but he would never be the same Blythe. Something in his spirit would die, and that would be worse, somehow. Aunt Rilla had said, once, that if Uncle Walter had come back from the Great War blinded or lame he would not have been able to bear it, being so divorced from the world's beauty, or so dependent on others. Blythe was like that. What if he could not ramble in Rainbow Valley—could not lift his head—could not move his arm to write the little poems that were so full of his hopes, and dreams? Cecilia knew that he did not write them only for others. He wrote them for himself, too. He would not be Blythe if he could not do that. Someone might help him, yes, but Blythe hated for anybody to help him. He would want to do it himself and if he could not he would suffer.

Oh, she should be grateful! She _knew_ that. All their other boys had come through safely—the family had either had word from them, and passed it along, or they had had no word, and that in itself was good news. If they had heard, they should certainly have a telegram by now, shouldn't they? Walt was in Italy but the others had been at Juno Beach; Gilly was safe, Mary Vance had heard from Marshall, Uncle Bruce had wired Penny at Red Apple Farm, Cecilia had heard from Lolo Anderson herself that Jims was through it with only a flesh wound, not even something that would keep him from the front. "That's good," she said, clasping Lolo's hands, but inside her a jealous voice wondered why Blythe had not come through safe, too. Wasn't he just as well loved as any Jims?

Blythe, Blythe—she saw him not as the sulky, jealous young man he had been in the months before their parting but as _himself_, again, when she thought of him, now. She remembered their long walks together, under the canopy of apple-blossoms—the maples of Rainbow Valley—the sun and stars of that good, wholesome sky that had sheltered them all their lives. She had danced with him at her sixteenth birthday party, and he had written her that poem that she always loved, calling her his 'longshore lass.' It was Blythe who had taught her to drive, one August afternoon in her sixteenth year, the both of them laughing as Cecilia helplessly sought for the brake and the car rolled slowly down the manse hill. They had been in peals over that—but even the happy memories were tainted by worry, now.

She thought of the curve of Blythe's mouth as he smiled, and the way his voice sounded when he asked, _Cecilia, what do you dream? _The way his gray eyes watched her as she told them. Once, foolishly, they had had a bitter row, when she had said she did not like the rhyme in a sonnet he wrote. And they had not spoken for a day—their longest coldness since that great one when they had promised not to quarrel again. She had cried herself to sleep and when she woke it had been to the sight of Blythe coming up the Red Apple lane, and she had flown to him. It had been like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. Suppose she should never see Blythe coming toward her again?

"I am a fool," she said bitterly—but why? Hadn't she always loved and treasured him? Yes—she had.

_But not in the way he wants_, said the voice in her head.

________________________

The telegram for Manon came on 13 June, a week to the day of the invasion. The girls were in their room when Peggy arrived with an envelope for herself, from Rob, and the orange envelope for Manon. Cecilia was sitting listlessly by the window, wondering when Blythe should be in England. She knew he was being transferred, and she wanted very badly to see him, but he had not yet been stable enough for the move. She had had a telegram of her own from Aunt Nan—so many telegrams came over the wire for these girls in those days that they scarcely took notice of them, anymore. There was not time for the raging dread each time one came.

Peggy was determined to cheer Cecilia. "Listen to this," she said. "Ron writes of his first night in France—it's funny, it really is. You'll like it. Here's what he says."

But they would never know what Rob said, because at that moment Manon gave a small cry from her place on her bed, and stood, her hand to her throat. The girls turned to her in time to see her move her hand from her throat to cover her face. The telegram she had been holding fluttered like a leaf to the floor.

"He's dead!" her voice was low and yet it was still a cry. "He's dead—he's dead—oh, my God—_no_. No, no, no! _Pas Ouen_, _pas mon amour, mon epoux! Non, non—je ne le croirai pas!_"

For a moment none of them could move. There did not seem to be enough space in the room to do it. Everything was taken up by Manon's grief. Cecilia had turned from her window as one in a dream—she felt the edges of the dream shimmer and turn nightmarish, streaked red with blood. The Piper—the Piper—she had wondered who of their own had followed. But she had known. She _had_. She only had not thought it would be…

"Owen," Manon was saying, over and over. "Owen, Owen, Owen."

In a daze Cecilia stood, and went to the place where Manon had dropped the telegram. It could not be Owen. It was a mistake. She thought of Owen, as she had last seen him, at Leslie's wedding. He had such gold curls, such mischevious blue eyes—the same shade exactly as his grandmother's and Aunt Persis's. Roguish eyes, Grandmother Blythe had pronounced them, once. And he, Owen of the flashing, roguish eyes—was dead? But he could not be, he was only a little boy. He was only Owen, Aunt Rilla's boy-baby of the House of Dreams. There had to be some mistake.

With shaking hands she smoothed the telegram on her knee, so she could read it, and know. Her eyes would not let her read whole sentences. Manon was keening, her skirt pulled up to show her slip, to hide her face. Peggy and Violet had their arms about her but Cecilia was aware that Manon stood as if they weren't there, stood like a woman built of stone. She read snippets, words: _Minister of Defence…regrets to inform…Owen James Blythe killed. _Not at the bloodbath at Juno Beach. At St. Lo. _Oh, Owen_, she thought. _No, no, no_.

It was not the first time she had been touched by death. Susan had died. It should have taken the sting from this moment but it had not. Oh God, oh God, why did it not? It was funny—she had never thought to worry over Owen. She had always thought of course he would come through. Oh, Aunt Rilla—and Uncle Ken—and Trudy, Trudy. And Manon, to lose someone else she cared about. Someone she loved. Her boy-friend—but perhaps they had been engaged. Her fiancé?

"My husband," Manon sobbed, her skirts still covering her face.

________________________________

"Dear Aunt Rilla," Cecilia wrote, her eyes swimming with tears.

"I told you in the telegram I sent to you one week ago that I would write to you the amazing details of Owen's marriage to my friend Manon Delaroux when I had more information. It was hard to get—Manon has been so incoherent with grief that I feared we'd never have the full of it. For four days all she would do was sit up by the window, but she didn't look out. She wouldn't even cry, Aunt Rilla—and that was somehow worse than if she had been. She had a little ring on a chain around her neck—she was wearing it under her clothes, always, and we never noticed—Owen's ring. She only held it, tight, in her palm, but wouldn't look at it, ever.

"We were so worried about her; she wouldn't eat and didn't seem to sleep. I wanted Dr. Blackwell to give her a sedative, but that seemed wrong—Manon wasn't crying or wailing. She was only sitting. The grief was at her core. She has lost so many, you see. I wanted to sit with her always and I feel like a traitor that I didn't, but Aunt Rilla, I _had_ to sleep, so I did—for a few hours. When I woke Manon was gone, but I knew where she would be.

"I went up to the roof. It was night, and starry out. There are people who swear you can see flashes that are the guns in France on the horizon, in London, at night, but I don't believe them. I only saw Manon, in the place I had first met her, sitting on the edge of the roof, with her legs dangling down.

"'Come away from there,' is what I said to her the first time I found her that way, but this time I couldn't, for some reason. I went and sat with her, myself. It was peaceful up there—so far removed from the world. It felt like we were outside the borne of time and space. Perhaps that is why Manon was able to talk to me, when she hadn't been able to, before.

"'I loved him,' she said. 'It must seem silly to other people that I did—we met each other only twice. But we wrote, and with Owen, one time was enough for me—and for him.' She said the last bit defiantly, as though I wouldn't believe he had loved her—but Aunt Rilla, I _know _he did. I need you to know he did, so I must explain it to you. You know how darling Owen was always so shiny, so bright? He _was more so_, with Manon. It was as though—he was the best Owen he could be, when he was with her. His most perfect person. He had a way of putting his arms about her like he was sheltering her—he knew of her past—and she had a way of cuddling into him, of _being_ sheltered, that she hasn't with anyone else, even me. Owen wanted to protect her.

"And that is why they were married before he went. It happened the day of Leslie's wedding, when I sent them into town to fetch her rings. It was on the spur of the moment, but I think they both must have been thinking about it for a long while, deep down. Owen knew that he would be shipping out within months, and he loved her, and I think he must have considered what would happen if he didn't come back. He wanted her to have _something_ of him, always, even if it was only a few happy hours, and his name. They kept it a secret because—well, because Owen wanted to do it properly when—if—he came home. And Manon thought—still thinks—that you and Uncle Ken will not approve of her. But you will love her, I think, despite her worries, because she is loveable and she loved your son. I—I think, auntie, that a bit of Owen will always be alive in her, because he loved her, too. Perhaps you two can put your heads together and find a way to help each other, now. Oh, Aunt Rilla—it will be my dearest hope that you will, when—

"When I bring Manon home, to the Island. For I am going to bring her. When we were up on the roof she turned to me, and for the first time there was a light kindled way down deep in her eyes. 'You told me of a place once,' she said slowly. 'A home—that would be open to me. _Your_ home. Cecilia—won't you take me _home_? I want to go home.' So I am bringing her to Red Apple Farm, and I'm going to keep care of her for a while. I thought—well, I thought it would be best if I brought her there. The House of Dreams won't be the right place for her, at first. And Aunt Rilla—I promised Owen something before he died, that I'd always keep care of her. And that is what I am going to do—as long as Manon lets me. We sail in two weeks' time. I've already given my notice at the hospital here.

"I want to write of something else; a memory I've just had. When we were small, just wee things, I visited with Susan and Grandfather Blythe arranged a jamboree for all of us kids in Rainbow Valley. We were so excited: there would be a fire and marshmallows, and tents set up to sleep in all night. But Owen _couldn't_ sleep unless he had the tent-flap open—so he could see down the hill, over to Four Winds, where the House of Dreams light was shining through the trees. We could just make it out. 'Haven't I got the nicest home, Cis?' he asked me as we snuggled down in our sleeping bags. 'And the loveliest little mother there, waiting for me? It makes all the difference—just knowing she's there.'

I hope that memory will bring you comfort until I am there to bring you more. And I hope it helps you to know that Owen was loved—that he found love, and gave it in return. That he had the chance to drink from that cup, at least. There's a saying that's lingering in my head, now, for some reason—I think old Aunt Christina MacAllister told it to me when I was a girl: 'one for sorrow, two for joy.' It reminds me that Owen might have had a short life—but it was a joyous one. And isn't that the most anyone can ask of their time on the earth?

"I love you. And I shall see you soon."

CECILIA


	28. Cecilia Decides

Cecilia was very busy for a the next two weeks, packing and getting hers and Manon's traveling papers in order. And then, at the very end, almost the day before her sailing, she had news that Blythe was in England—he was in a hospital in Southampton—and she might visit him, before she went. There was no more news than that about how he was, and Cecilia's hand shook as she telephoned to arrange to visit him. Suppose she should find him blind? Or paralysed? But then she shook her head. She would find him _alive_, and after Owen's loss, that was enough.

She took the train to Southhampton on the last day of June. The hospital where Blythe was staying was very clean but very grim, full of sick and dying men. She had been a nurse for two years—she could no longer delude herself about what she saw. Many of these men would not go home again, and on every body she saw Owen's face. Each one of them was _someone's_ Owen—someone's baby, lover, husband, friend.

Tears streaked her face when Blythe was wheeled out to meet her. He was so _thin_—so haggard-looking—and yet so unmistakably Blythe. He was in a chair, a wheelchair, but he was sitting up, and besides a terrible bruise on his cheek and a bloody patch from a burst blood vessel in his eye—many of the boys had them, from the pressure of the shells—he was in one piece, and she was so thankful for it. The nurse wheeled him out to the garden and when she had gone, Cecilia knelt before Blythe and placed her head on his knee. There was a sea breeze coming up from the water and washing over them. Tears seeped out of her eyes and through the thin blanket covering his legs. _Thank You, God_, she thought. _Thank You for saving him. I'll try to deserve him. _

She lifted her face, it was radiant. There were so many questions she wanted to ask him. She settled for the most obvious first. "What do the doctors say about your walking? How soon will you be up out of this chair?" For she really believed that Blythe would be well and whole again. All doubt had vanished from her. But Blythe's face remained grim.

"Never," he said, "I won't walk again. That seems to be the general prognosis."

Cecilia stared up at him in horror. For a moment Blythe the man wavered—and was replaced with Blythe the boy. He began to cry—angrily—and she understood the anger was at himself. He swiped the tears away with his fists.

"I am a beast, worse than that," he said. "Owen—is—dead, and I worry that I won't walk again. It should be nothing. I should be happy just to be alive."

"It isn't nothing," said Cecilia fiercely. "It is a terrible shock—and it will be a huge adjustment. You're right to mourn—but Blythe, I want you to know that it doesn't change some things. We all will love you just as much—more so—because we thought—we thought—we thought you might not live."

"It will change everything," was his succinct rejoinder. "No more rambles, darling—no more waltzes—no more races with the little Annes, or piggyback rides for Romy. No more—_me, _at least, not the me I was. I won't be able to seek the beauty out—people will have to bring it to me, and that isn't the same. I shall be dependent on those around me—and there will be times you all will hate me for it," he said, with a half-smile, and an eerie prescience in his voice.

"No," Cecilia assured him. "Not _ever_ that last thing."

Blythe turned his face away. It was so grim and set—she had never seen it like that before. "It should have been me," he said to the trees. "Owen was the kind of fellow that would have gotten through this cheerily. I—wish—I wish it had been me."

Cecilia was the one who was crying, now. "No, Blythe," she sobbed. "It couldn't have been you. Because—because I _love you_. Do you remember, long ago—you asked me if I could try to love you _in that way_? Blythe—I do. I want to be the one beside you, to take care of you. I've been reading since I heard you were hurt—I think that with some help and some effort, we can get you walking again, no matter what the doctors say. And I'm going home—I'll be home when you get home. Won't you let me be the one to take care of you? I want to be the one to do it—to bring the beauty with you—to help you get strong and well again. I want to be the one who loves you and I want to be the one loved by you. I didn't always know. I thought we could only ever be dear friends and nothing more. But now I see that our friendship all these years has been like a prelude: our lives together will be the true song. Blythe, I want to be your _wife_, if you would like to have me for one. Would you—would you?"

Blythe looked down into the little wet-rapt face and emotions played across it. He knew, first and foremost, that he should not let her offer such a thing. And having offered it, he should not allow himself to take it. But—he loved her! Oh, he did! He thought, ashamedly, of how he had broken things between her and Sid—how he had tried to keep her from her calling. He did not deserve this little, kittenish Cecilia! This wonderful woman, with the steadfast blue eyes! But he had loved her all his life, and, God help him, he was only a man. He could not resist her. So he promised himself, instead, that he would devote his life to making her happy—and making himself worthy of her.

"Yes, I'd like that," he said, and Cecilia smiled through her tears to see that the shadow across his face—his clear gray eyes—was lightening, lifting.

They kissed. It was not like—other—kisses she had had in her life, but Cecilia took a comfort in it, because of the way Blythe's eyes looked when they pulled away. And perhaps kissing was like other things, and you had to practice it, to get better.

_But you didn't have to practice with Marshall Douglas_, said that traitorous voice in her head. Cecilia pushed it—and the thought that she would eventually have to write to Marshall of her engagement—to the side. Her engagement—oh! She had the thought that Mother would be very happy—and Aunt Nan.

Blythe was saying something about Aunt Nan. "Mother has a ring, for me. It is an old sapphire that belonged to Great-Grandmother Blythe. Mother inherited it when she died—she was her pet, you know. She told me she was saving it, for the time I took a wife, and I am going to write her to give it to you, when you get home. I wish I could put it on your hand myself," here Blythe allowed himself the first, cautious smile, "But just knowing you are wearing it will have to do."

"I'll be proud to wear it," Cecilia said. "We're going to have a very sweet life together, Blythe. The famous poet and his devoted wife."

"His wife—the famous doctor."

Cecilia looked at him, sharply, and then shook her head. "No," she said. "I've given up on that dream. I've seen too much suffering—and besides, I want to spend every moment with you, helping you. Don't speak of it again, Blythe. _Please_ don't."

Blythe let it go, but he vowed that he would not let the subject drop entirely. He would persuade her, sometime. But for now—he had accomplished enough for one day.

"I wish I could stay with you," Cecilia said regretfully, as she saw the nurse approaching to take Blythe away, the signal visiting hours were over. "But we leave tomorrow—and there is still so much to do."

"How is Manon?"

"Better—a little better. She is excited to go home. I think it helps her. It will be hard, once she is there, and sees all the people and places Owen loved. But I am going to help her over the bumps. I'm going to make sure she's loved and looked after, Blythe."

"She is lucky to have you," Blythe said. _We all are,_ he thought. He took her hand. Before he could let her go, there is something he must ask her—something weighing heavily on his conscience.

"Cecilia," he said, his brow furrowed. "I need to know—something. I don't _want_ to know—but the agreement between us can't be settled until I do. Are you—were you—what are your feelings about…about Marshall Douglas? Is there—something—between you?"

It was a shock to be asked. Cecilia laughed—but not before a stricken look passed over her face. "Why would you ask me that?"

"I remember you as being rather chummy, and it's obvious he loves you. You only have to look at him. I—I've never liked him, Cecilia. He's so—prosy. Prosy people hurt me, you know. And I expect he feels the same way about me, in reverse. Do you love him—do you?"

Cecilia leaned down and took Blythe's face in her hands.

"I suppose Marshall and I have 'crushed' on each other a little here and there," she admitted. "But it's nothing like what I feel for you, Blythe. When I thought you were dying, I wanted to die myself. I don't feel that for anyone else."

"Are you—sure?"

"Yes—yes. I don't love Marshall Douglas. I couldn't. I couldn't ever."

_That is two more times than she needed to say it, _Blythe thought, but again—his love made him weak. He squeezed her hand, and Cecilia squeezed back, but deep down she felt like Simon Peter with her denial. She rode the train home in a haze. So much had happened in one afternoon—so much had changed. Or had it? Had it changed—or had things always been this way?

She flew up the stairs to the dormitory where the other girls were squeezing the last of Manon's things into her trunk. "Congratulate me, girls," she said defiantly, her black curls flying around her face, her blue eyes snapping. "I'm engaged to Blythe Meredith. I'm going to be his wife."

And then, inexplicably, she began to cry.


	29. Homecoming and a Heart to Heart

A large crowd turned out to meet the eleven o'clock train at the Glen station; friends, family and countrymen of Cecilia Blythe, who had heard of her homecoming. There were mixed reasons for everyone wanting to be there to see her: some of the onlookers, a large proportion of them, were family, who loved the girl dearly and had missed her desperately these long two years. Many others who did not know Cecilia well wended their way to the station anyway, because a homecoming of any kind was rare these days. There was scarcely a family in the district that had not been ravaged by the loss of a loved one; it would be good to see a family reunited, even if it was not their own. And a large proportion had come expressly for the purpose of seeing the war-widow of Owen Ford. A whirlwind wedding—was there something not quite right about it?—a French girl—well, how would Rilla Ford react? Likely she would not like the girl, and they wanted to see sparks fly.

Una and Shirley Blythe stood with both sets of their parents; Gilbert was beaming and Anne stood radiant in white, looking around the bend, listening for the first notes of the train's whistle. John Meredith was in his chair, with a blanket thrown over his knees. His wife Rosemary had wanted him to stay home, but he would not miss this homecoming for the world. He was not quite sure if he would live to see the end of this war—he felt old in his bones, for the first time in his life—and Cecilia had always been a pet of his, for she was Una's girl, and named for his long-dead first wife. On his lap sat little Romy, all gold-curled, a sturdy girl of four, now, and no less dear to him because she had been named for the second woman he loved. _If only Susan were here_, he thought, and as he looked up, he thought that the others were thinking of her, too. The thought heartened him—he had loved Susan as much as he loved her sisters—and she could not really be dead as long as she was remembered.

Rilla Ford was there, wearing white. Some said it was pretension, and that, at forty, she was too old for the light colour, but those who knew her well knew why she did not wear the greens and purples she had loved so much before. Her face was white and haggard, and had been since her return to the House of Dreams after Owen's death the month before. Ken could not leave his post at the newspaper in Toronto, but she had brought Hannah and Trudy with her, and the three women looked stricken and surprised by grief. Next to them stood, staunchly, Faith and Jem, a bulwark against the curious stares darted in their direction. Some people, Faith Blythe knew, had always seen the Blythes as charmed, and had not thought that death would come to them this way. They wanted to see how the 'proud Blythes' would react. Well, she, Faith, would not give them any fuel for that fire! She put her arm around Rilla, as though to screen her from the world.

Nan Meredith and the Rev. Jerry were there, too. Nan had, in a velvet box in her coat pocket, the sapphire ring that had belonged to her grandmother and was now going to belong to Blythe's fiancée. She shook her head, wondering at the strange turn of events. She had known Blythe was in love with Cecilia and she had known the girl loved him more than almost any other person—but she had been fairly sure Cecilia did not love him in that way. The news of his betrothal had come so soon on the heels of his injury that she felt a little bewildered by it. She loved Cecilia, but she was not unaware of her son's complicated personality. Cecilia was strong with others, but she had always been like putty in Blythe's hands. And Blythe tended to dominance, when he thought he could get away with it—he would need a firm hand in a wife, to keep him in check. Would Cecilia—Una's gentle girl?—be able to do it?

_Be happy for me, Mother_, Blythe had written. _I'm over the moon_.

Well, Nan surmised, she would lay off these cares and concentrate on the fact that at least one of her children was happy. She darted a little glance at Joyce, who stood, sullen, by her father's shoulder. She hardly recognized her Joy anymore. Her once beautiful hair, so gold and long and perfectly styled, had been hacked off at the level of her chin, and her eyes, erstwhile so gray and sparkling, were dull and flat, now. Jacob Penhallow had come home only a few months ago, but Joy had not come to meet his train, then. Nan crossed her fingers inside her coat—silly superstition for a minister's wife—but she hoped that Cecilia would be able to instill a little of the old colour into Joy's cheeks.

They heard the whistle of the train, long and low. Baby Iris, in Penny Meredith's encircling arms, clapped her hands with glee, picking up on the expectant mood of the others. The train pulled into the station, and passengers began to disembark. A man in a bowler hat—a young soldier, home on leave—a group of young girls. Where were they? Where? Shirley had a moment of vertigo as he watched for his daughter. Suppose—suppose he should not recognize his girl? Suppose she had changed in the time she had been away. Would she be a stranger to him, now—in ways other than looks? But as he thought of it Cecilia appeared in the door of the train, and began to climb down the steps, and his heart picked up its normal rhythm again. She was his girl, sweet and unchanged. Her eyes were scanning the crowd, looking for him.

Una Blythe lost her head entirely, for the first time in her life. "Cecilia!" she shouted—it was the loudest anybody had ever heard Una speak in her life. She jumped up and down—she waved her hat—she was crying, even as a wide smile split her face.

Cecilia flew to her mother's arms. Una held her girl tight as she could, and they laughed and rocked together for a long moment. How thin Cecilia was! And how—pretty! And grownup! When she had left she had seemed a girl, still, in many ways, but here she was: unmistakably a woman. The Blythes, Merediths, and Fords pressed forward, everyone wanting to speak at once.

Cecilia turned—put her arm around the girl standing in her shadow and pushed her gently forward. Everyone held their breath as one, waiting for her to speak. This must be Owen's wife—Manon, her name was. How thin and small she was! What a cap of silky curls! _Nae beauty_, murmured Norman Douglas from the back of the crowd—but the word striking would not have been misapplied.

The crowd stepped back, respectfully. It seemed only right that Rilla and the girls should meet her, first. Cecilia turned almost formally to her aunt.

"Aunt Rilla," she said, "This is Manon—Manon Ford. Manon, this is Aunt Rilla and Trudy and Hannah."

People did not dare to breathe. Rilla was regarding the girl with a long, appraising look. Something in her face reminded Mary Vance of a dam that was about to burst. Manon looked up from under her fair lashes piteously. She looked as though if Cecilia did not have hold of her arm, she would bolt back to the train.

Rilla finally spoke. "You are so lovely," she said, to the trembling girl. "I see right away why Owen fell in love with you. Welcome, Manon. Welcome _home_."

She opened her arms and Owen's wife fell into them. Rilla petted her hair and kissed it, and everyone felt their eyes begin to sting. And Rilla was thinking that she had lost a child—but God had sent her another, to help her over his loss.

________________________________

"Are you still awake?" Penny Meredith wondered to Cecilia, whom she found sitting out on the back porch, staring out over the orchard with gloating eyes. Cecilia turned to her, her thin face rapt.

"Oh, Aunt Penny," she said. "I know it's late, but I can't go to bed. My heart won't let me. _It _wants to reacquaint itself with home, no matter how tired in body I may be."

They had had a long day. Everyone had wanted to come back to Red Apple, to talk with Cecilia and become acquainted with Manon. Una had had to talk almost sternly to them to dissuade them. There would be time and the poor dear was overtired almost to the point of tears. They must not overwhelm her, and kill her with kindness. Only Aunt Rilla and Trudy had come back to the farm for supper, Aunt Rilla with photographs of Owen in her bag, showing him at every stage of his development. After supper, they had sat in the parlour whispering over them, and Cecilia had gone straight out into the orchard. She climbed the oldest tree, higher and higher, until she could see the sea glittering in the distance. The neat patchwork fields—the rooftop of home—the tall red cliffs in the distance. She was home. _Home_.

"I heard a very pretty rumor about you," said Aunt Penny, sitting down on the step next to her niece. "And judging by that sapphire on your finger, I see it isn't a rumour at all. You're going to marry Blythe—well! You could do worse than a poet. Sid Gardiner is making a failure at farming, you know. Hasn't the brains or the gumption for it, it seems."

"You are the third person to tell me that since I've been home," Cecilia said, a little exasperately. "I wonder if everybody thinks I should _hate_ poor Sid? I don't—I only pity him. His life has not turned out the way he wanted it, I think—and I have mine spread wide before me."

"Spread wide before you," Penny repeated. "Cecilia—I wonder if that will be true for you, as Blythe's wife? He is very strait and strict, you know. You don't see it because you love him, and because he loves you. Oh, don't _flash_ those eyes at me, granddaughter of Anne! I love Blythe—isn't he my nephew? I think him the most adorable little tyrant. But Cecilia—have you never noticed how he always gets everything he wants? It isn't _all_ luck or hard work. Blythe is good at taking the things people hand out for him. And you are good at giving without noticing the taking. I wonder if one day you will wake up and find that he has taken everything and given very little in return?"

"Blythe gives me many things," said Cecilia stiffly. "He gives me friendship—and love—and beauty."

"But marriage is more than that," said Penny earnestly. "It is a lot more hard work than you can imagine now, Cecilia. And that is not entirely your fault—that you can't imagine it. There are an awful lot of storybook romances around these parts. Your grandparents—your parents. Cecilia, there will be nights when you'll go to sleep hopping mad—when the very sight of your beloved will set your teeth on edge—when you feel you have done everything wrong in life and bungled it entirely. How will Blythe help you when the chips are down if he is always expecting you to be the one to help _him? _And you are so similar—the same things that get to you will get to him, because your souls are too much the same. There is no balance there, dear heart."

Cecilia got stiffly to her feet. "It's done," she said tightly. "Why are you telling me this? It's _done_. I gave my promise, Aunt Penny. And I _love_ him. I want to be his wife. We'll figure things out, as everybody does. And you have—you have _ruined_ this night of homecoming for me."

Penny looked up in consternation. She was the sort of person who always spoke plainly—too plainly—she knew that about herself. Drat it all, she should not have dumped all this on the girl. She was just being her old, pessimistic self. It was so easy to fall into that with Bruce so far and so long away. He was the one who kept her steady, just as she kept his temper in check. _Do I hate to see romance anywhere because my own lover is gone_?

"I'm sorry, darling," she said contritely. "I'm a beast. Let's talk of something else. That Manon of yours is a doll. I'm so glad Owen married her so that she could come to us. How does she like it here so far—has she said anything to you?"

Cecilia felt herself settling down. She sat back down next to her aunt—but she kept a wide berth. "She is overwhelmed, I think. I put her to bed an hour ago—Aunt Rilla wanted to take her to the House of Dreams but I was firm. Manon needs to recuperate from today. I had to undress her, like a little girl. She was babbling French to me as I tucked her under her quilts—I don't think she quite understands yet, what has happened to her. Losing Owen and gaining a family—such a large family—in so short a time—well, it is a lot to take in."

"She would have made him a superb wife," said Penny. "I can see that about her already. Maybe she will learn to love again someday? Well, you are good to stick by her—although I hope it doesn't stop you from applying to Redmond this fall. It's too late for you to go this year—but you might start classes in the spring."

"I am not going to Redmond," Cecilia said, with a wry smile.

"Not going to Redmond! Of course you are. Cecilia, if it's the money, Bruce and I have been putting a little aside. And you can qualify for veterans' assistance. I've looked into it. Dear, you mustn't give up on your dream of medical school. It _can_ be done. Look at me—with a little luck and some elbow grease, I managed to get my bachelor of laws."

"I do not _want_ to go to medical school anymore," Cecilia said sharply. "It has nothing to do with money—_or_ Blythe, before you bring him into this, too. I'm tired, Aunt Penny. I want to rest and I don't want any more of death—for now. Maybe I will change my mind. Maybe not."

Penny wisely said nothing except, "Well, I owe Mary Douglas five dollars, then. She bet me you wouldn't stick it out. I said she was wrong, of course. Likely I'll have to pay her, two. Mary never forgets about money owed her."

Penny got up and kissed Cecilia's hair.

"Aunt Penny," Cecilia said, and her aunt turned at the door. "I love you. I'm just a little cross, tonight. I know you have my best interests at heart—but I suppose I have to get reacclimated, too. Tomorrow I'll be my old self again."

Penny smiled. "Of course you will, darling." She paused. "Cecilia," she said, a little shyly. "Perhaps I've been too hard on Blythe tonight. No—I know I have. I really am fond of him—and I think, after all, there are ways in which the two of you together will be happy. You will never be bored with him. He will keep you apprised of the beauty all around you. And you'll have darling children."

"Blythe doesn't want children," said Cecilia, with a wavery smile. "He says he wants to lavish all of his attention on me. He says I am too valuable to him to be wasted on child-rearing drudgery. And he has always wanted to travel…" Her face clouded as she wondered if that would be possible, now, with Blythe confined to his chair.

Penny wisely did not ask the girl what _she_ wanted. She simply crossed the worn boards of the porch and kissed Cecilia's face, once, twice, three times.

"Welcome home, darling," Penny said. "We're glad to have you back."


	30. Comfort and Joy

Cecilia was so busy at Red Apple Farm that she did not notice, for a week, that Joy was conspicuously absent from things. There were _so many_ people around, and Manon couldn't be left alone to fend for herself among them. She cooked and cleaned and arranged the flowers people sent, and reacquainted herself to Romy by reading to her, playing with her, walking with her, sitting still while Romy's chubby fingers made clumsy braids in her hair. She was the very picture of Susan at that age, except for that gold hair. But she was not so shy, and her vocabulary and speech were that of a child of well-advanced years. "She got that from me," said Grandmother Blythe, a little sorrowfully, a little proudly. But Cecilia did not mind if Romy talked overmuch. She had hardly been talking at all when Cecilia went away. And now she chattered on and on, with such a charming little lisp.

"Thethilia, I'm _tho_ glad you are home. It was _lonethome_ without you. Mummy and I talked about you every night, you know, tho I wouldn't forget you. Did you get my letterth? I wanted to write you mythelf, but I only know how to write my name. But I di-di-_dictatored _to Mummy what it wath I wanted, and she wrote it down for me. I have a secret for you—I slept in your bed, thometimes, when you were away. Just to keep it from being lonely. I'm not lonely at all now you are here—and Manon. She is tho pretty, ithn't she? Ith Manon our sithter, like Thuthan was?"

"She is our sister of the heart," Cecilia said. "We must treat her like our sister, because she had one—and lost one—like we did, Romy-girl."

"I like Manon," said Romy. "I'll go and tell her that she is my sithter, and I'll give her a kith, too. But I'll never like her as much as you, Thethilia. Will you thleep in my bed tonight, pleathe?"

"I promised Grandmother Blythe I'd sleep with her at Ingleside tonight," Cecilia said with regret. "But tomorrow I will, Romy—and any night after that you want me to."

Cecilia found her days very full. Everyone wanted to see her, and have her around with them, and she went, gladly, when she felt Manon could spare her. But all along a little naggling feeling that something was missing plagued her. She was making candy with Helen and Maggie Mead in the kitchen at Red Apple when she realized what it was: _Joy_. Where was Joy? Why hadn't Joy come to see her?

She had barely seen Joy but for a brief minute at the station. And she had been aghast to see how her cousin looked! She had always been a little plump, but now Joy was like stick and bones. Her eyes seemed too large and piteous for her thin face, and her hair—her long, beautiful hair—had been chopped unevenly short. But the change in her went deeper than just appearance. It was as though some spark—some _joy_ at living—had been extinguished, forever.

Cecilia was quiet through supper that night, and Manon noticed and felt like crying, because she supposed herself to be a burden to her best friend. Una noticed and thought of telling the girl to go straight to bed after the meal was finished. But Cecilia turned and asked Shirley for the keys to the car—she wanted to run down to Lowbridge and see Joy for a few hours.

"Oh, hello," said Joy breezily, by way of greeting. It was all an act—Cecilia could see that. Joy was clad in a pair of worn dungarees, with a swiss dotted shirt thrown on on top, and a matching kerchief covering her poor hacked-off locks, which were wound into pincurls. "It's nice of you to drop by, Cecilia. I was wondering when I was going to get a chance to see you. I've been meaning to drop by, but I've been so _busy_. I've had three dates this week—and it's _only_ Thursday. Ralph Elliott is coming to pick me up at eight, tonight, but I've a good hour before I have to get ready. I suppose I can sit with you for a little while."

Cecilia stood shocked, blinking back tears. After two years away, this was to be Joy's greeting to her? _Nice to see you_—_drop by—a little while_? And Joy was going on _dates_? And being flippant about it? After what had—happened—with Jacob, only a short time ago? What had happened to her Joy?—because this forced, graceless girl could not be her.

"I didn't know you—knew—Ralph Elliott," Cecilia said faintly, sinking down onto Joy's bed.

"Oh, of course I do," glittered Joy—a hard, dangerous sort of sparkle. "He's really not so bad once you get to know him. He was so angry with me for letting Carey Crawford escort me to the dance last week. But I said to Ralph, I said, 'Why be tied down?' It's so stodgy, don't you think?

Joy had pulled her kerchief off and was taking out her bobby-pins, tossing what remained of her hair. She looked into the mirror, critically. "What do you think?" she asked. "Do I look all right?" She had outlined her eyes in kohl, and painted her mouth a vivid red. Cecilia realized that Joy hadn't worn much makeup in the old days. She had false, overdone look about her, now. She lacked her old sweetness. Her eyes, for all their put-on colour, still looked large and hurt and sad.

Cecilia said, simply, "You look fine—but you can't fool me, Joy. Why—why are you trying to? You _know_ you can't."

For a moment there was not a sound at all in the house but Aunt Nan frying the supper in the kitchen downstairs. Then Joy's face crumpled, all at once. She twisted her hands in front of her—tears streaked down from her eyes, leaving dark tracks of mascara over her white cheeks.

"I know I can't," she said in her old voice. "But I hoped I might. I—I didn't want you to feel sorry for me, Cecilia. And nothing so very bad has happened to me—not like what has happened to Aunt Rilla, or your Manon. I—I suppose I thought I didn't have the right to be as sad as I was after the news came about Owen. Mother has been at me to change my attitude. So I thought—well, I thought I'd _try_. And it was better than feeling so sad about Jacob all the time. It was nice, for a while, to see other fellows and let them take me around, make a fuss over me. But after a while I didn't like it anymore. _They_ weren't Jacob, you see. I thought—I thought Cliff MacAllister was nice, but last month he admired my _hair_—phrased it the same way Jacob always did. And I realized that I'd only liked Cliff because he reminded me of Jacob, a little. I came right up to my room after he dropped me home and I cut my hair off—and when Cliff phoned again I told him I didn't want to see him anymore. Oh, Cecilia—it _hurts_ just as much as it did—more. Why doesn't it stop hurting? Why?"

Cecilia opened her arms and Joy nestled herself in them. "Joyful, Joyous," she murmured, stroking those unfamiliar curls. "You've every right to mourn if you want to. Your tragedy is no less because it belongs to you, and not somebody else. Joy—have you never talked anymore to Jacob about why this happened? Haven't you seen him at all since he's been home?"

"Once," sniffled Joy, her head pillowed on Cecilia's shoulder. "I saw him in Douglas's—he was with his father and sister. He was in his chair. I saw the leg of his trousers folded up and pinned—he saw me looking. He pulled on Becky's arm and she pushed him out. Other than that I haven't seen him at all."

"Don't you think—don't you think you should go and visit him? And at least talk with him?"

"I don't think he wants me to," Joy said, with a watery smile. "Oh, Cecilia—if I could only _know_ what made him stop loving me! I feel so confused—and I'm a beast on top of that. I was so glad of your coming home—until mother told me about your engagement to Blythe. I'd hoped you'd get engaged, so I'd have someone to plan with. But I resented you so much, now that I'm not getting married myself. I guess I am just plain 'pizen mean,' as Norman Douglas would say. _He_ asks me everytime he sees me if I've 'made up' with my beau, yet. It's getting so I'm starting to hate the sight of him. Cecilia—Cecilia—nothing about my life has turned out like I planned."

"That is the danger in making too many plans," Cecilia laughed. "Providence—or the devil—I can't decide which—occasionally dashes them to pieces to teach us that there is only one thing we can count on in life. I don't think you're a beast, Joy. I think you're only hurting. Dear, I hope you will be glad in time that I'm marrying Blythe. We'll be really sisters now—not just only cousins."

"I am glad," Joy said, looking into Cecilia's eyes. "I worried for a while that I'd funked things up, there, too. By telling you about Blythe—and how he told Sid. Cecilia I've not been honest with you, completely, there. If I was going to tell the whole truth then I suppose I must confide in you that I sort of _egged_ Blythe on. I confided to him that you weren't sure about Sid, and I told him that I thought you might be talked into marrying him if he ever asked you. I said I thought it would be a dreadful mistake because you weren't quite happy with him—I said this to Blythe. I don't think he was thinking of himself at all, when he told—I think he was thinking of _you_."

Cecilia nodded tightly. She had suspected Joy's previous explanation might not be as uncomplicated as it had seemed. She had not ever been fully able to reconcile the Blythe she knew, to _that_ Blythe, who would tell such a thing solely for his own personal gain. It—almost comforted her now, to know that he had done it because he wanted to save her. Of course that could not be the only reason. But she thought of Aunt Penny's little speech on the night of her homecoming. She felt this example proved Aunt Penny wrong. Blythe was capable of thinking of others, even if his motives were not entirely pure.

"We'll put that behind us, Joy," she decided, on the spot. "We have both grown up so much since then. And I'm _so tired_ of talking about things past—past slights and hurts and deceptions—I want to move _forward_, darling. Here, honey: use this handkerchief to scrub your face and then go phone Ralph and tell him you don't want to go out with him tonight. You _don't_, Joy, and there's no use torturing yourself by making yourself do it. You're going to stay here with me and we're going to have a long chat. I want to know everything I've missed while I was away—every single thing. And later, when you're ready, I'll take you home and you'll spend the night with me at the farm, and meet Manon. I think you'll like her. And I think you can be good for her. And it's just like Grandmother used to tell us—helping someone is the most surefire way to feel better, yourself." _And I'm going to get the bottom of what happened with you and Jacob_, _no matter what. I'm going to find the answers you crave, Joy, so you can lay this matter to rest, once and for all. I expect this, too, might not be as simple or uncomplicated as everybody thinks. _

Joy went and did as Cecilia bade her. When she returned to the room, she had washed her face and brushed her curls out, and looked more like her old self. The girls sat on the bed, cuddled under one of Aunt Nan's cashmere afghans, and rekindled their old friendship, the embers of which had threatened ash in their time apart. Cecilia worked hard to keep Joy from venturing down those dangerous pathways, and Joy got into the spirit of things a little, and recalled a whole host of little things to tell Cecilia about the Glen in her absence that nobody else would have thought important. Nellie Douglas had won first prize in a 'dance-off' at the Glen hall, for instance. The prize had been a week's worth of gas rationing tickets—and what had Nellie done but gone and given them to the Marshes down at Harbor Head? Everyone knew Mr. Marsh had to drive all the way to Carmody for his job and could scarce afford it. But wasn't that _just_ like Nellie?

"And that reminds me," Joy said, giggling. "There was a scandalous rumour going around—started by Cathy, I think—that Marshall Douglas_ was in love with you_! Can you imagine? I know you're chums, and you saw each other in England, but it's quite a leap from that to love. But then, Cathy has always had a flair for the dramatic. It's too funny, don't you think?"

Cecilia sat straight up, her cheeks suffused with colour. She did not say whether she found Cathy's supposition funny or not. She was only thinking suddenly that she had never answered Marshall's last letter—not even a quick note to acknowledge it. He had sent it right before D-Day, and then Owen—and Manon—and Blythe's injury, and everything. _You are the only one for me_, he had written, and perhaps since she had not replied, he was holding out hope… But she was engaged to Blythe, now. She realized with a shock that she would have to write Marshall that news, as well. Marshall was such a laughy fellow—but still, she had the idea that he would not take the news of her engagement well. She pictured a lowering of his brows—the flashing of his vivid eyes. And worse than that: she pictured him with his shoulders stack with defeat—some jolliness gone out of his smile. She must write him—soon—she must—she was ashamed she had left it so late. He could not hear it from someone else, before he heard it from her. It would sound the death knell of their friendship, if that should happen. Cecilia knew that for certain.

She decided she would write him that night, after Joy and Manon had gone to bed. But when they had, and Cecilia sat up at her desk, with her paper before her, she found the words would not come. She could not find the words to tell him. After many false starts, she finally threw her pen down and went to sit by the window, her knees up to her chest, looking out at the nighttime world. She reached up around her slim neck and released the catch on the gold chain that she wore. She held the necklace in her palm, looking at the red enamel charm that Marshall had given her. She had never taken off the apple pendant since Marshall had given it to her. It winked at her in the moonlight—reproachfully, she thought.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. To whom—to Marshall? To Blythe? She did not know. Either way, she must betray someone she cared very much about. Why was life like that? Why did it seem like an endless string of hard choices—no sooner one dealt with than another was waiting, looming large before her. And once a choice had been made, it was so hard to go back and undo it, if you wanted, later.

Manon and Joy were sleeping together in the bed, the white and rose gold strands of their hair mixing on the pillow. They had gotten along so well with each other that night—Cecilia had been happy to see both girls she loved smile, in the course of that evening. But now it was she who felt so suddenly sad, and so she climbed into bed and nestled between them, for once not in the mood to give comfort, but to seek a little of it, for herself.


	31. Ye Who Are Weary

One crimson-and-gold day in late September, the Rev. John Meredith sat in his chair under the shady, splendid maples on the manse lawn, looking out over the view that, after thirty-seven years, was so familiar to him now. Here was the road leading down from the manse hill to Rainbow Valley, here was the Methodist graveyard where four scamps of lovable children had once wreaked such havoc on popular opinion. How he had despaired in those days of ever getting things right with his children! And now they were all grown-up, each well into middle age, all staid and sweet and respectable and each one a credit to him. These trees that shaded him now had been only saplings when he arrived in the Glen, so many years ago—now they, too, were grown up. How glad he was that he had never been called away from this place! For every inch of it held a memory for him. He remembered meeting Rosemary by the brook, drinking with her from a white-birch cup; he had led her over the threshold of this house as a bride; in a room upstairs, an east-facing room, little Bruce had been born and their family had been cemented by his arrival.

Inside the house now, he heard his wife playing the piano—one of his favorite hymns. His granddaughter—his dearest, if he was being truthful, and John Meredith always strove to be truthful—was singing the words in her clear, sweet voice. _Come home_, Cecilia sang. _Come ho-o-ome. Ye who are weary, come home. _John was weary, very weary—with a weariness that originated somewhere deep in his bones. And yet his mind was as quick and crisp and awake as it had been on the windiest of days. He looked all around him and noted for one final time the things about the world he had loved. The lacy clouds away up over the treetops—the asters in the garden, which Faith had planted from Rainbow Valley bulbs long ago. Cecilia—his wife Cecilia—had always loved asters better than all other flowers. This morning, John had heard on the radio of the Allies' push to the Siegfried Line. In a matter of days they would be in Germany. He would have liked to see the end of this war, but he knew in his heart, upon hearing that, how it would turn out. It was enough—it was enough. He felt the weariness slip over him, more deeply, but it was not unpleasant. It was only like growing a little drowsy in the sun. He would not call out to Rosemary—he wanted to go with her pretty voice, and pretty Cecilia's, to sing him out of life. He wanted a minimum of fuss. He hoped—he only hoped—he had finally done his duty by all of them. But then he knew, with a sudden certainty, that he had. And more than that—he had loved them. He smiled, and leaned his head back against his chair-top. His eyes closed, and the music washed over him as he passed out of this life, and into the next.

It was Cecilia who found him there, a little later. She came out of her house with her cheeks flushed, bearing a tall glass of lemonade she had just mixed up. The glass trembled in her hand when she saw her grandfather there, with that little smile still upon his lips. She knew at once that he was dead. She had seen death so many times—but she had never seen it come like this, as a friend. She set the glass down and went and sat at her grandfather's knee, as she had so many times as a little girl. She pressed her lips to the slender white hand, so worn with writing and working.

"Oh, Grandpa," she said, her voice shaking a little with tears. "Thank you for waiting so that I might see you again. And—thank you for everything, darling."

John Meredith's funeral service was held in the Presbyterian church where he had preached for almost forty years. But there he broke with tradition, and to many peoples' shock, his will stipulated that he wished to be buried in the _Methodist_ graveyard. Tongues wagged over that—Mary Vance said darkly she was only glad poor Cornelia was not alive to see such a thing—but those who knew the minister well knew why he had wanted that. This way, his wife, who had bought the manse outright many years ago, would be able to have him near, and to slip over to sit with him, often, instead of having to go all the way to the graveyard over-harbor. His children—Faith, Jerry, Una and Carl—arranged for an old-fashioned red, oblong sandstone slab to be cut with his dates and laid over his grave. Una, who took her father's death very hard, nonetheless smiled when she saw Romy and little Iris sitting on it, swinging their legs, as the four manse children had done with Hezekiah Pollock's stone so long ago. She felt her father would have loved that—the symmetry, between those days and these.

Cecilia went down to the graveyard the third day after the burial to plant a row of blue-gold pansies around the plot. Autumn was coming—and winter—in the spring she would take a slip of the blood-red Red Apple Farm roses here and plant it. But for now, the pansies would have to do. Leslie came with her—Leslie, who had come up from Virginia for the funeral with Captain Hart—_Doug_, Cecilia corrected herself. Leslie was looking exceedingly plump and rosy, and had announced to all and sundry that she would be a mother, come May. If it was a boy, she had announced that they planned on calling him John, for Grandpa Meredith.

"What will you name it if it is a girl?" Cecilia asked her curiously.

"For you—or for Mum," Leslie grinned. "Doug's mother thinks 'Persis' rather strange but warmed to it when she heart it was a family name. They're all like that in Virginia—you could name your child Bumpkin and they would approve, if it was a name that happened to belong to your great-great-great. Mother Hart told me that Persis sounds grand, and that she thought my family must be very distinguished from the sounds of it." Leslie's grin widened farther. "So of course I naturally had to tell her all about Grandma Leslie and the details of her first marriage."

"Oh, Les! You didn't!"

"I did. And she wasn't scandalized, Cecilia—she was _interested_. People are always surprising me—I rather like that about life. Grandpa Meredith, for instance. I was always a little afraid of him when I was a girl. Of course I loved him—but he was always so dreamy, and we didn't see him much. I thought him terribly solemn and on the lookout for little girls who were misbehaving. And then one day, when I was about six, I was in the manse parlour listening to the radio, trying desperately to master the steps of the Charleston. Grandpa came in, and I _froze_—but then he very calmly took me by the hand and showed me gracefully what I was doing wrong, and how to fix it. We Charlestoned all up and down the front hallway—and then he taught me to waltz, and let me stand on the tops of his shoes to do it. I was never afraid of him again after that."

"I remember when Susan died," said Cecilia softly. "I was fourteen years old. It happened so suddenly, you know, Leslie. Susan was fine—then she had a fever and was cranky—by the time we realized it was polio it was too late, and she died. I loved her _so much_, Les. I still do. And everyone came for the funeral, and I couldn't stop crying. Already it seemed as though the details of Susan were fading from my mind. I thought I would forget her entirely, in a matter of days, or hours. I thought Susan must be desperately lonely away from home—she was always so shy, and had never been away from home before. I was weeping over it, in the library at home in Montreal, when Grandpa Meredith found me. He got the whole story out of me, and instead of calling me silly or condescending to me, he promised that the first thing he would do when he got to heaven would be to sit down with Susan and tell her that I loved her, and then he'd keep her company until I caught up with them. He's with her now, I know—and with Owen. He and Grandmother Cecilia are together again, too. Les, I like to think of how she must have waited for him so patiently all these years—but I see her getting up and rushing to him with her hands out when he finally arrived, unable to be patient any longer."

"I wonder if she was jealous of Grandma Rosemary," Leslie wondered. "Do you think that she and Granny Cecilia will catfight over him in heaven?"

"I don't think anybody Grandpa chose as a wife could do such a thing as 'cat fight,'" said Cecilia reproachfully. "And I think that when two people love a person they should be bonded over that love—not hateful over it."

Cecilia spoke the last words without any trace of irony, and Leslie looked quickly into her face. Was it possible that Cecilia was making a joke at her own situation? For Leslie had had several letters from a Lieutenant Douglas that were not exactly hateful but certainly very cold toward Cecilia's intended. She wondered for the umpteenth time if Cecilia really was so much of a silly, clueless little goose in this matter as she pretended to be. And so she said,

"I had a letter from Marshall last week, by the by. He writes that he wishes for me to give you his congratulations on your engagement. He'd write himself," said Leslie lightly, "But he's quite busy at the moment, fighting for his country."

Cecilia looked up sharply, dropping the clump of pansies she was planting. "He—knows?"

Leslie was pitiless. "Cecilia, _of course_ he knows. I'm sure Cathy wrote him the news ages ago. The only question is, why didn't _you_ write him?"

"I couldn't." Cecilia brushed her dark hair from her eyes. "Oh, Leslie—I tried. Again and again, I tried. But every time I began all I could see were his eyes—looking so hurt and hopeless. I couldn't do that to him. I _couldn't_. I care for him too much."

"Well, you've done it by lack of action," said Leslie. "Cecilia, if you care for him that much, oughtn't you not to be marrying Blythe?"

"I don't care for him that way," Cecilia amended, quickly. "But—I know he does for me. Leslie, your bias is showing. You've never, ever liked Blythe."

"No, I haven't," Leslie said, but she wisely did not push the topic further. She lay down on her grandfather's stone, her long, living hair spilling down onto the tumbled earth. "But I am glad he's getting better. Aunt Nan told Dad Blythe will be home by October. You must be very glad you're going to see him so soon."

"Very glad," said Cecilia tremulously. "He and Grandma Rosemary have always had a special bond. Perhaps they'll cheer each other—I hope so. Grandma is bearing things beautifully—but I know she'll be lonely without Grandpa, and with Uncle Bruce away."

"Is she going to leave the manse? Surely she can't live all on her own."

"Aunt Penny and Iris are going to live with her. I shall be glad to lose them, but Manon will have Aunt Penny's room, and I'll have mine to myself again. Leslie, Manon is doing splendidly, isn't she?"

"Splendidly," Leslie agreed. "You've done wonders with her, Cecilia. Cecilia, do you know you have a little bit from every one of your grandparents? You are the only living grandchild who represents them all so completely. You have your grandmother Anne's dreaminess—you have Grandfather Blythe's practicality—Grandma Rosemary's understanding and what I think must be Grandmother Cecilia's sweetness."

"And what did I inherit of Grandpa Meredith?"

"His faith," said Leslie. She pronounced the word like a benediction. "He was the most faithful man I know."

Cecilia had already watered her pansies, but now her tears fell down to bless them. She was thinking of the man that they had loved, and she was glad a little of him would always live in her. She looked up at her cousin and saw in her John Meredith's dreamy brow—the proud uptilt of his chin. Leslie would go on living—and Joy and Blythe and little Kent and all Aunt Faith's brood—and she understood, then, that her grandfather had not died. He had only—like all weary travelers—finally come to rest.


	32. Two Roads Diverged

_I was dreadfully sorry to hear of the Rev. Meredith's death_, Marshall wrote to Cecilia, at the end of September. _He was always so kind and understanding—qualities you don't often expect to find in a man of the cloth, though you always should_. _Cecilia—do you remember my old dog, Rex, from your visits to the Island? He died when I was just a little boy and I remember, about that time, starting to worry about certain questions of life and death, worrying over them terribly. Something I said to the effect shocked my mother—I don't remember what exactly—and she marched me right down to the manse, so that Rev. Meredith could 'set me straight.' And he did, but not in the way Ma expected. We had a nice long talk, and I've always remembered it. It was the first time, I think, that a grownup had ever had _time_ for me, had ever really cared about sitting and explaining things until I understood them. I shan't forget your grandfather soon, and I know his death must be a great loss to you & your family, who are in my thoughts. _

_Might I also take this opportunity to extend my congratulations on your engagement? I heard about it some months ago, and my letter is woefully out-of-date but the good wishes never are, thankfully. Congratulations, Cecilia. I hope Meredith realizes what a lucky fellow he is to win you. _

Cecilia sighed as she read those last lines. She did not doubt that Marshall's sentiment was heartfelt, as he said, but altogether the letter was a cold, stilted little thing. 'Dreadfully sorry'—since when did Marshall say things like 'dreadfully?' _You are in my thoughts…you & your family…congratulations on your engagement_. There was nothing in Marshall's letter that had not been in the letter Cecilia had gotten from Nurse Prowdy! And he had called her 'Cecilia'—not even one 'Cee' for old times' sake. She didn't know why it should hurt, but it did. Marshall was angry—angry still. Or else he _meant_ what he said, and his love-letter had been a fluke, the tangible effect of a boy's fear of battle coupled with a sudden, fleeting romantic notion.

Either way, she knew, as she put the letter aside, that the days of her and Marshall's great friendship was over. They had grown too far apart. Things could never be the same between them again. A friendship was like a furnace, in a way, she was beginning to understand. You must stoke it, and feed it, and fan the embers into flames. But Cecilia had failed to attend to that fire for so long, and now it was flickering out, dying down into ashes, cold and gray and scattered by a breath.

"Ah, well," she said, and went downstairs to sit with Manon a while before supper.

________________________

Cecilia spent the first week of October helping with the apple harvest, and as soon as the last russet had been plucked, packed her bags for Avonlea. She had not seen Aunt Di or Uncle Jack or Bertie or Teddy in over two years, and longed desperately for a good long Green Gables visit. This would likely be her last chance for a visit for a while—she could not leave Manon again for so long, the holidays were looming, and more than that, Blythe would be home at the end of the month. She must pack two years' worth of good times into five days, and she made a valiant attempt and succeeded at her effort.

Shirley came to collect her at the end of the week, and they drove home together past neat patchwork fields that were beginning to lie fallow, waiting for the frost. Cecilia darted little glances at her father as they drove. She had missed this, perhaps, most of all, overseas: the little quiet moments with her Dad. They had always understood each other so well, and been more like friends than father and daughter. What a pleasure it was just to sit in friendly silence with him! And how nice it was to see Red Apple Farm loom on the horizon—to turn down the friendly lane and get closer and closer to home. Mother was airing the winter quilts and they fluttered on the line like flags of welcome. And there, under the trees, was a figure seated in a chair—a chair—why, it was Blythe!

"Surprise," Shirley said, and stopped the car so that Cecilia might jump out. She flew up the lane to Blythe. When she had almost reached him, where he sat in his chair, he stood, surprising her, and took a few shaky steps toward her. Seeing him walk in that awful, hunched, excruciatingly slow way was almost painful to her, until she realized that _Blythe was walking_. He was moving toward her of his own accord, holding his hands out to her. Cecilia took them, and tilted her head up so that Blythe could kiss her, and she was so happy in this moment to see him smiling—and _walking_—that the kiss was everything she could have asked from it.

"Now, help me back to my chair," Blythe commanded, when the kiss was ended. "I _can_ walk, now, Cecilia—just not far, and not long. But I'll be going further every day and sometime soon I'm going to be able to dance with you. I'll always have a limp, but I shan't embarrass you at our wedding. Never fear."

What had changed about him? It was like—well, it was like the Blythe she had seen in the hospital had died, and been replaced with the Blythe she remembered from years past. Dreamy, but not sullen—attentive, but not jealous—caring, and not selfish. Cecilia felt tears come into her eyes. It was as though it had been longer than a few months since she had seen him last. It had been years since she had seen _this_ Blythe. She had wondered if she would ever meet him again.

"Blythe, Blythe!" she crowed, holding tight to him. "It's _you_!"

"Yes, it's me," he said, with a funny half-smile. "I don't know what brought me back, Cecilia. I think that it was—you. When you said you'd marry me, I felt like you'd handed me the moon. I felt like there was nothing I couldn't do. You belonged to me, then—and I didn't need to be jealous of anybody else. I didn't need to worry anymore that you _didn't_ love me. And so I set all my effort into getting better, and I surprised myself by getting so much better they sent me home, early. Kiss me again, sweetheart—yes, that's the way. Cecilia, I've been a little sulky child these past years. Things are going to be different now, darling."

"Oh, I'm so _glad_," Cecilia said, nestling against his chest. "Not about any one particular thing—glad in general. The world seems to be a very beautiful, wonderful place to me right now—when this morning it was only the same old sphere it had always been. Blythe, has Mother seen you? And have you met Manon?"

"I have indeed. She's been keeping me company all morning while we waited for you."

"And what do you think of her?"

Here Blythe's face changed, all at once. "She is—incredible," he said, with a sudden passion. "I expected a dour widow, but she is as fresh and sweet as a daisy, isn't she? Not beautiful—not exactly—but there is something about her that reminds me of the old legend of Melusine, the woman risen up from the sea." Here Blythe seemed to check himself, though why he should, Cecilia did not know. She grinned up at him, and he grinned back.

"Shall we go in and tell her you're here? And shall we announce to everyone that we've chosen a wedding-date, at last? I'm thinking next spring, in Rainbow Valley. What do you think, honey?"

"I think yes," said Cecilia happily. "Spring in Rainbow Valley is perfect."

But underneath—was there a sneaking thought that perhaps it was too soon? And a little uncomfortable feeling about standing with Blythe under the Tree Lovers and White Lady, pledging to be his wife? No—no—it was only that the sensation was so _new_. And she could not ever go back on her promise, now. Not after the things Blythe had just said. She was as good as married already, she realized with a shock. Blythe's recovery and his reasons for it had bound them in a way that even wedding vows could not.

But then Cecilia threw back her shoulders. She looked up at Blythe—and she reached into her coat pocket and touched the thin edge of the letter from Marshall. She had taken it to Avonlea, thinking that she would answer it, but she hadn't. In a flash, she understood that there was not one set path, necessarily, for any human life—there were only a series of different avenues that one might take. It was like that poem by Mr. Frost: _two roads diverged in a yellow wood_. She had taken her road, and it led to Blythe. Perhaps there would have been joys along the other path, but there were plenty ahead for her in the one she had chosen. The thing about traveling was that you could not look back. If you did, you missed those lovely things set out for you on the road ahead. Cecilia resolved that she would not look back again. She would go forward, and forward—with Blythe. She flung her arms around him, and held him close.

"I'm so glad to have you back," she said, and added, silently: _in body—as well as spirit_.

_______________________

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews on this new version. To those who have asked about my Alice stories (and a few others), I don't know what happened—I think my account might have been hacked? They are no longer appearing in my stories list but I didn't delete them—luckily I have them saved. I've changed my password and will repost them soon. -Ruby


	33. Surprises

"I wonder what this is?" asked Cecilia, coming in with the mail. In one hand she held a sheaf of letters that had come for the Red Apple Farm residents, and in the other, she held an envelope address to her, bearing the seal of Redmond College. "What can Redmond college want to do with _me_? Likely there's some other Cecilia Blythe somewhere and this came to me by mistake."

But Manon, who had been sitting quietly and feeding Romy her breakfast, suddenly grew pink of cheek and sparkling of eye. She jumped up, and Cecilia watched as she did a little victory dance, right in place.

"It's here, then!" she cried, cryptically, "Oh! Blythe was right—it worked! Open it up, Cecilia—and see what it says."

_Dear Miss Blythe_, ran the letter;

_After reviewing your academic records and in light of your recent overseas service, we are pleased and proud to offer you a place in our medical candidate class of 1950. In addition, we hope that you will accept the James D. Tiverton scholarship, which we have awarded you, to finance your education. We are sending the course catalog with this letter, and your housing assignment in our dormitory. You may register for classes at the campus, or by mail or telephone. We look forward to having you; and hope that you will enjoy your time in Kingsport. _

_Very sincerely, and with congratulations, _

_Jeffrey Williams, M.D. _

_DEAN, Redmond College School of Medicine. _

_Personal note from Dr. Williams: Miss Blythe, are you by any chance related to Dr. Gilbert Blythe, of Glen St. Mary, and Dr. James Blythe, his son? I was at school with Jem Blythe, and if you are his relative, look very much forward to meeting you in person and catching up with his pursuits and certain successes these many years. And I am doubly excited to have you in our upcoming class; the talent for doctoring seems to be alive and well in your family. J.W. _

"Manon, what is this?" Cecilia asked slowly, her breath coming in short little gasps. "What have you _done_?"

"It was Blythe's idea," said Manon proudly. "We got all your records together and send in the application for you. We knew _you'd_ never do it—you'd feel too guilty at leaving us, and find some excuse to stay at home. But you _must_ go, and now you _can_ go. We didn't _dream _about the scholarship—your Uncle Bruce was going to pay, and Blythe, but now they won't have to! Oh, oh, it's too wonderful! I am going to telephone Blythe right away and let him know."

"Don't bother," said Cecilia darkly. "I'll go and tell him myself. And a few other things besides," she added, in an ominous voice.

What should have followed was the first big blowup between those sweethearts, but Blythe refused to be drawn into a fight. He was just as jubilant as Manon.

"It's a five-year plan, Cecilia, a compressed degree program, made for GIs and medics coming home from the war. Two years general education—biology, chem, anatomy, things like that. Another two for an intensive medical course, and then one year of residency in a hospital. They don't normally take nurses, but Manon and I managed to convince them that they should, and they're going to open the program up, I think. I bet you won't be the only of the fairer sex in your class."

"But I _told_ you I didn't want to go to medical school," said Cecilia, angry and close to tears. "How _dare_ you go over my head, Blythe? I'm going to write to Dean Williams on Monday and tell him there's been a mistake—I don't want the place in his class, after all."

"Why _don't_ you want to go?" Blythe would not match his tone to hers. He only _wondered_, a little curiously. "You were so dead set on it before, and now you're just as dead set _against_ it. I know why you must be, Cecilia. You think I don't want you to go—because of a foolish boy's words, spoken years ago, and in jealousy. Or else you think you'll fail. Well, I do want you to go. I've made plans to finish up my B.A., myself. We can get a little flat in Kingsport, after we're married, and attend to our separate studies. Doesn't it sound fun? We'll learn—and grow—together. And I won't have you deciding, down the line, that you wish you _had_ gone, and resenting me—and everybody—because you didn't. Cecilia, I am so certain this is the right thing to do that I'm going to give you an ultimatum—yes. Here it is: You must go for at least one semester, Cecilia—you must give it the old 'college try' or else I _won't_ marry you, much as that would devastate me."

"Then _don't_ marry me," Cecilia began to say, but Blythe pushed on, before she could.

"As for the other thing, the fear of failure—Cecilia, will you admit I know you better than anyone? Well, I am going to tell you something about yourself that I've noticed and worried over: you are so easily defeated, sometimes, darling. You didn't fight for Sid Gardiner, when May began to prowl about. You stepped back, in your shy, retiring way, and let her pounce on him. Glad I am that you did—but it's indicative of your nature in general. You didn't apply for one scholarship after graduation when your parents couldn't afford to send you to school—you just set back and promised yourself you'd study on your own—and didn't. Sometimes, Cecilia, I wonder if I won you only because you were too afraid to stand up to me? Did I wear you down and down—did I wear all the fight out of you? If I did, I won't forgive myself soon—and I'm not going to let you give up on your dream. So there is no use trying to make me. I shall stand firm."

Cecilia went away in a pique of anger and resolved to herself that she was not the only person in her family with a flaw. Blythe, for instance: how overbearing he was! She decided she wouldn't _speak _to him, and she was almost cold to Manon. She poured out her story in a frenzy to Una, that night, expecting a sympathetic shoulder. But she was surprised, there, too—for Una took Blythe's part.

"Mother, I don't want to go," Cecilia said tearfully, and reproachfully. "I've only just got home, you see—I can't bear to go away again, and leave you and Dad and Romy. I can't believe you would want me to."

Una looked at the pansy-like little face, the streaming blue eyes that were so like her own. What had Walter said about them—'steadfast'—that was it. The problem with steadfastness was that sometimes the owner of that quality could just as unwaveringly cling to a silly, or false, idea as to a loyal and true one. Una reached out and smoothed a tendril of Cecilia's dark hair—only a shade off from her own—behind her ear.

"I don't want you to go, darling," Una said. "I don't ever want you to go away again. But in this case, Cecilia, I think you must do as Blythe says and try. Cecilia, I won't have you making my mistakes. I thought, when I was growing up, that I would be a mother and wife one day—and then when Walter died I knew I could never marry anybody else. And so there was the question of what to do with my life? I hadn't any talent, or skill. I never got my teaching certificate. When Faith went to Queens I stayed home. I didn't know how to _do _anything, darling. I toyed with the idea of getting my degree in Household Science—but in the end, I didn't go. I oftentimes think, Cecilia, of what my life would have been like if your father had not made me fall in love with him. I would have been like a woman in a boat, tossing about on the open sea, with no idea of how to steer or drop anchor.

"You are engaged to Blythe, and it is my dearest wish that everything should work out between you two. But nothing that happens in life is planned, Cecilia. What if something should happen to him—or by some horrid chance, you should not be married after all? You could stay here with me and Daddy as long as you liked but you would regret never having a life of your own, I think. Darling, I want you to be able to make your own way in the world. I want it for Romy, and I wanted it for Susan. It is the problem of having two shy parents: the children grow up that way themselves. I want you to be independent, and capable of making your own way. You were off to a good start—you went overseas and made your way there—and now you must continue to develop that trait in yourself or you will lose it entirely. Cecilia: I think you should go—I _know_ you should go. And your father feels the same way."

And Cecilia, seeing her mother's face in that moment, knew she would, and for the first time, a thrill of excitement ran through her veins. College! She was _going_ to go! But then she bit her lip.

"I can't leave Manon," she said. "I wonder at myself for thinking it. Mother—I promised Owen, before he died that I would take care of her, always. I can't break my promise to him, now."

"It isn't breaking your promise to have your own life," Una pointed out, reasonably and gently. "Owen would not have wanted you to promise that away, darling. We love Manon like another daughter, and she will have a place with us at Red Apple Farm always. And Blythe and Joy will take her under their wings while you are away—and Grandmother Blythe, too. And Cecilia: think on things from Manon's perspective for a moment. You have done so much for her, and she is sure to feel it, and think herself a burden. I know—I felt that way about myself, once. She is so excited over having arranged this, because it is something, finally, she can do for _you_. Will you throw her efforts back in her face?"

"No, I won't," said Cecilia firmly, and all at once she was whisked away to a sunset cloud of glory. In her minds' eye she saw herself attending classes, and excelling—pouring over books—learning about the hidden rhythms of the body, and the building blocks of life. She saw herself crossing the stage to receive her diploma, everyone clapping for her accomplishments. She saw herself step down from the stage, and right into the arms of a dark-haired boy, who twirled her around, a proud smile on his face. She saw Marshall lower his lips to her ear and murmur—

Cecilia came back to herself with a start, her heart pounding in her breast. She saw Blythe's face—she had meant to think of _Blythe_ telling her how proud he was. She really didn't know why she had allowed Marshall to elbow himself into her daydream—the mind was a funny thing—perhaps she would learn, one day, one day soon, what made it work in such an unpredictable way.

"I'm going right upstairs to write to Dean Williams," she said. "To accept my place. Mother dearwums, how is it you always know the right thing to say? You're the wisest mother a girl could ever long for. Then I'm going to write Peggy and Vi and tell them—then I'm going to go thank Manon. And _then_ I'm going to go tell Blythe that I'm not cross with him—that I love him for what he's done for me."

So Cecilia Blythe was admitted to Redmond Medical School. And a month later she had a letter from Peggy Long, still in the hospital in London. She was going to apply, herself, for the class of '51, and Cecilia smiled to think that she would have dear Peggy to pal around with during her college years. Things would not be so lonely with a friend at her shoulder. Uncle Jem and Grandfather were besides themselves, and Grandmother Blythe promised as expected that she would look in on Manon often, and gladly. And Cecilia was able to put her worries to rest, and look to the future with a glad, expectant heart.

"Everything's settled," she told her family, with happiness, that night. "And now there is only one thing left to do. I'm going to spend a lot of time with you all since I must leave you so soon—we're going to have a real love-fest. I'm going to get my fill of each of you, so I won't miss you as much when I go away in January. I'm going to love you long and hard and so often that by the time I'm finished, you'll be _glad_ to have me go!"

Una and Shirley stood in the entry way of Red Apple and watched Cecilia frolic with Manon and Romy in the snow that had fallen in the night. The first snowfall of the year was always a magical thing, and more so at the elfin Red Apple farm. Cecilia wore a peaked red hat that matched Romy's, and her laughter and Manon's blended to make a silver stream of sound. The moon was rising over the bare branches in the old orchard, and as Shirley watched his girl romp with her 'sisters,' he could not suppress a sigh.

"She's growing up and leaving us, Una," he said, a little forlornly, but laughing at himself for it. "I knew this day would come—I prepared myself for it—but now I see that nothing could have prepared me, really. She doesn't belong to us anymore. She won't, ever again, really, after this."

Una studied her girl's face. She had Shirley's chin, and his full lips. And there was something of Una in her, too. Cecilia would carry those things with her to the end of the earth. And more than that: they had had a hand in shaping her soul—her kindness—her sweetness—her intelligence. Those things counted more than a thousand chins. Una had a flash of pride at her dear, sweet, _good_ girl—and Una was not given to pridefulness.

"She'll always belong to us," said Una certainly. "Why, she'll always be the little baby who was born right here in this house. Do you remember that day, Shirley? The sun was coming up—the light just touched on her face. She belonged to us then—just as she always will, no matter if she goes away to college for a thousand years."

Shirley put his arms around his wife, and smiled, comforted by the certainty in her voice.

"You mothers," he said appreciatively. "God knew what he was about when he made _you_."+

_____________________________

A/N: The last sentence (marked with a +) is taken from _Anne's House of Dreams_, by LM Montgomery.


	34. Cecilia Sets Things Right

Cecilia went into town in mid-December, to do a little early Christmas shopping. She usually liked her bustling life, but she was glad for a the change, today. She had to pick up a few things to take with her to Redmond, and was not looking forward to trying to negotiate an entire new wardrobe with her scant rationing tickets but the will of Susan Baker had been passed down the generations and was strong in her, and she intended to do her best, and 'that you may tie to.'

She also wanted to think a little about recent war events. The Allies were holding the line at the Ardennes, surrounded on all sides by the Germans, but pressing on, valiantly. There was Civil War in Greece—the French had taken back Strasbourg. In the Pacific, the Americans were in the process of storming Mindoro, and people had begun to talk, cautiously, of this as being the last war Christmas. Cecilia did not believe that, quite—it seemed to her as though the war would go on and on and on. But the sense of excitement was infectious, and so her cheeks glowed and there was a new spring in her step, as she picked out a few little presents for those who were nearest and dearest to her. A book for Blythe—some pretty rayon for Joy to make herself a new dress, her first in ages—some record albums for Manon, a pretty teddy bear for Baby Iris. She saw a gay, shining silver harmonica that once she would have set aside for Marshall Douglas—but now she passed it over with only a little pang of regret, and picked up a slide whistle for Romy.

After a morning's worth of errands, she stopped at the Eaton's café, and queued up for some of their thick, famous hot chocolate. Made with tinned milk—and only a little chocolate, which was rationed, now. But still: if she did not scrutinize it too closely, it could pass for the real thing. The place was crowded, and she had trouble finding a place to sit.

"Excuse me," she said to a man sitting at an otherwise-empty table, "Do you mind if I sit here? I promise not to try to make conversation with you—oh! Jacob _Penhallow_!—how…how do you do?"

She was surprised by his appearance. Jake Penhallow had always seemed a big, broad fellow—he was very thin now, his face all planes and angles. She almost would not have recognized him at all, except for his red hair—bright, slick, nearly-orange; Penhallow red, not the _almost_ auburn of her own lineage. She saw now that he was not seated on one of the café chairs, but in a wheelchair. She could not see his legs, but she noticed that his eyes were a burning, vivid blue. And she noticed he was like a _shadow_ of the man Joy had been engaged to.

"Sit," he said, bitterly. "I don't mind. It was Becky's idea to bring me into town. But she soon found out it was hard to shop _and_ wheel her brother around. So she parked me here and here I've been sitting over an hour—long enough to be glad for any company even—well. Sit, if you'd like."

_Any company—even Joy Meredith's cousin_, Cecilia knew instantly he had meant to say before good manners prevented it. She sat, a little timidly, and stirred her hot chocolate. For all his desire for someone to talk to, Jacob did not seem to be inclined to say a word. They sat in an awkward silence for a long moment, and then Cecilia asked, softly,

"How are you, Jacob—how are you _really_? I—I've been meaning to come and visit you. But I have a lot of responsibilities at home right just now, and…and I thought it might be awkward with what has happened between you and Joy." _There, _Cecilia thought, _I've brought it up and gotten it out in the open, and we won't have to pretend it didn't happen, now_.

Jacob's mouth quirked up at the corners, and for a moment he almost looked like his old self. But when he spoke, it was with bitterness in his voice, again. "How am I _really_? Well, Cecilia Blythe—I find myself pretty useless these days. Can't walk, or run, or do most anything, but I must keep a stiff upper lip because I've come back, and some fellows won't ever. My brother Howie, you know—killed at Dieppe. Most of the clan would have preferred me to be the one who got it—Howie was their pet, you know. I mustn't complain because it upsets Becky and Dad, and reminds other people that Howie isn't here to complain about anything anymore. And I mustn't seem ungrateful. I'm _almost_ getting used to people looking just slightly over my shoulder when they talk to me; and I've gotten pretty adept at apologizing for confronting them with my missing leg. So things are just _fine_, as you can see."

Cecilia recoiled—what he said was so much like what Blythe had said to her, in the hospital. Only Blythe had gotten better—was getting better every day—and Jacob seemed to be stagnating, instead. Jacob saw her face—and he reached up to rub his eyes. When he took his hand away the anger was gone. He only looked very tired, all of a sudden.

"Sorry," he said. "Cecilia—I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lashed out like that. But God knows I just thought that I could be _myself_ for a minute and let it out. Things—things are hard, and I mostly am grateful for what it is I've got. At least—I will be. But it isn't easy knowing that I'm dependent on others—will be, for the rest of my life. I saw it in Becky's eyes, today, after she'd bumped my chair into the wall for the fifth time. She was—she was annoyed with me, I guess, though she knew it wasn't my fault." He blinked his blue eyes rapidly.

"I can't stand the thought that the people I love should come to hate me," he finished, in a low voice.

"Jake," cried Cecilia, without thinking, the wheels turning rapidly in her head, things suddenly clicking into place. "_That_ is what happened with you and Joy—you thought _she'd_ come to resent you, and so you let her go before it could come to that!"

At first Cecilia was aghast at having brought it up. She clapped her fingers over her mouth, and watched as Jacob's throat worked as he swallowed. If he should tell her to go away, she wouldn't blame him. But surprisingly, he didn't. He _nodded. _

"And it wasn't only that," he admitted, as though he were realizing it for the first time. "I guess I thought she deserved better. We'd always talked of the grand house we'd buy when we were married; the boat I'd get; the places we'd go. I told Joy I'd take care of her. But how can I, now? I can't even take care of myself."

Oh, it was too terrible! And yet, it _was_ lovely, in a way: That Jake should want to protect Joy—to set her free from what he saw as a grim, joyless life. Impulsively, Cecilia reached over and covered Jacob's hand with her own.

"She still loves you," she said, thinking that Joy _might_ kill her for saying so. Or—kiss her. Cecilia's heart beat rapidly—she seized her moment. "Jacob, _she loves you_—loves you as much as she ever did. Why, she never talks about your leg except to say that she hopes you're doing all right, and getting well. If that is the reason, really—you must tell her so, and let her have her say. You must at least let her try to _prove_ herself before you assume that she will be disappointed with you. You owe her that. Joy—you know Joy, Jacob! She is so tender, and so caring. And she _doesn't _care that your plans will have to change a little—or a lot. She only cares about _you_."

Jacob's eyes were watering—he turned away for a moment. "It was a stupid thing for me to do," he muttered. "I know you're right—but I wasn't thinking clearly, then. I did what I did before I could think not to—and after I'd done it, I wished I hadn't, because I love her, too. But I'd already acted—and there was no way to go back. There isn't."

"There _is. _You must only find some way to reach out to her, and build the bridge between you again. There must be _some _way. A note—or a card…"

"I did think about getting her a Christmas present," Jacob admitted.

"Well, then, I'll help you choose one!" Cecilia cried, before he could lose his nerve. "And I'll take it to her. We'll go hunt one up, now. I'll push you—and I promise to steer clear of walls. What do you say, Jacob? Will you do it?" Under the table, she crossed her fingers and waited.

Jacob looked at her, long and level across the table. "She—she's missed me?"

"Oh, Jake. _Yes_. More than anything."

"And you think—you know—she still…wants me? Even after the way I've treated her? Even—even as I am?"

He looked so hopeful that Cecilia felt her own eyes well with tears. "She keeps your letters tied with a pink satin ribbon, in the first drawer of her bureau," she said, looking directly into his eyes and speaking in her most simply honest tone. "She cut her hair off because someone else admired it—someone who wasn't _you_. The locket you gave her—she wears it pinned to whatever she is wearing, that day—inside her sleeve, or at the waistband of her skirt, where we're not supposed to be able to see. When anyone speaks of our cousin, Jake Blythe, her head turns and for a moment she looks like she is hearing music—and then her eyes go flat, again, as she realizes. She can't bear to listen to _Stardust_. If it comes on the radio, she has to leave the room."

"We danced to _Stardust_ at our first dance," Jacob said, a tentative smile touching his lips. "I won't forget how I felt when I held her in my arms. I was a boy of seventeen, and she was so light, and graceful—like a breeze, or a song. Cecilia—I love her, too. I'm miserable without her. And I would like to get her something—if you'll help me."

"Come on, then," Cecilia cried, abandoning her hot chocolate. She did not even feel guilty about waste—not when something so much more important was at stake.

She and Jacob visited nearly every department of the store that afternoon. They looked at jewelry—Jacob paused over a pin with amethysts shaped to look like violets, but eventually shook his head. Only _real_ flowers for his Joy. Fake ones—even precious gemstone ones—would just not do. A dress seemed like such a serviceable, anonymous sort of thing—anybody could give Joyce a dress. A hat was the same way. Gloves were a _little_ more romantic, but Cecilia knew Joy did not need any gloves. A silk scarf might do—if there were any silk scarves to be had these days. Cecilia was just about to give up hope when Jake reached past her to a tray on the counter.

"What do you think about this?" he asked, holding it up.

It was a handkerchief—a white handkerchief, which sounds very unromantic indeed, but when Cecilia saw it, she bit her lip and shook her head _yes_. Because, you see, it was a _lacy_ white handkerchief—the very kind that brides were apt to carry on their wedding days, back then. It had a faint blue blossom embroidered in the corner, for luck. Cecilia understood at once what it meant.

"Oh, Jake," she breathed. "She'll love it—but are you _sure_?"

Jacob said, "I haven't always been sure, Cecilia, but Joy has always been sure of me. And she's no fool, so I'll take her word on it."

The saleswoman boxed the hanky up, and handed it over, beaming, because Jacob and Cecilia were beaming, themselves. Cecilia waited while Jacob scribbled a note and handed the precious cargo over. She tucked it carefully in her bag, and promised to deliver it right away. Then she wheeled Jacob back up to the café.

A tall, slim, red-haired girl dropped her bags and flew over to them, looking relieved. "Jake!" Rebecca Penhallow cried, "Oh, Jake—I thought something had happened to you! Darling, thank _heavens_ you're all right. I'm a beast and sorry to have kept you waiting so long. Jake—Jake—you must never do that again, you gave me such a scare." Becky's eyes glittered and she blinked hard against her tears. "I'd die if anything happened to you. I love you, honey."

Jacob met Cecilia's eyes.

"Yes," he said meaningfully. "I'm beginning to realize that lots of people do—though for a while I was too stupid to see it. Come along, Becca—on the way home you can tell me how much money you spent and we'll try to decide whether we're going to tell Father—or make up a new amount, for the sake of his health. Cecilia—_thank you_."

Cecilia left Manon and Blythe laughing and murmuring together over a jigsaw puzzle by the fire and drove to Lowbridge as soon as she had dropped her parcels home. She gave Joy her present and watched to see her reaction. Joy did not disappoint her. She fingered the lace—she held the white slip to her face—she began to cry with happiness, for the meaning was not lost on her. She read Jacob's card, and the look in her eyes was like the sun coming up over a dark place. She pressed her fingers to her lips even as her tears fell down onto his writing. She passed the card to Cecilia so that she might see the words Jacob had written there, lifted from that old, beautiful hymn:

_Was blind, but now I see. _

He did not need to write anything more. That and the handkerchief combined was enough to let Joy know that all was well in her world again.

Cecilia watched as Joy backed Uncle Jerry's car down the driveway and zoomed down the lane, toward Bay Silver, and a love that once was lost, but now was found. Aunt Nan came and stood by Cecilia and reached down and took her hand, and squeezed it, gratefully. Then the two women went upstairs to the attic and brought down a certain trunk, which had acted as Joy's hope chest for many years, until she had packed it away. They opened it, now, and spread her finery on the bed, so that when she came home—in the wee hours, they were sure—she might see her future laid out before her, clean and white and sparkling, full of promise.


	35. Creation Story

Cecilia would always remember the winter and spring of 1945 as a whirlwind. Things seemed to be happening so fast, and so all at once, that it made her head spin. She took up residence at Kingsport, and began her studies, and liked them far more than she had ever expected she would. There were three other girls in her class, and they made a little society amongst themselves—the 'Lady Candidates,' they were called by everybody. But Cecilia Blythe was recognized at once as their leader, if not socially, at least academically. She did not disappoint Dean Williams, who stood firm in his belief in the Blythes as a medically-minded sort. She began to rack up successes—one by one—and knew within her first week at Redmond that Blythe would not have to hold her to her promise to try. She could not help but try her hardest—she would keep on—she would see those initials of 'M.D.' after her name, yet.

Despite her joy of learning, she missed home, but the people there kept her apprised of things. Mother wrote almost daily, and Dad a nicely weekly scrawl, and Manon _constantly_. 'Blythe and I went sledding today—we went into town and saw _Mildred Pierce_—we had an old-fashioned taffy pull.' Cecilia was glad that Blythe was taking care of her dear friend. Even Romy wrote to her—she was learning her letters, and her notes could have passed for abstract art rather than literary epistles, but Cecilia was glad to have them nonetheless.

The Germans withdrew from the Ardennes—withdrew further and further every day—the Allies began their great, final, victorious push to stamp them out for ever. Reports began to come across the wires—hideous reports from places with blunt names like Auschwitz and Dachau. Cecilia's world was upended by the news of the Nazi death camps. Her heart went out to Manon—Manon did not have to wonder, anymore, what had happened to her sister. Now she knew. Only Joy's letters about her resumed wedding plans could take Cecilia's mind off of those horrors—but even then, they crept back to haunt her. They would continue to haunt her for the rest of her life.

February became March became April, and Cecilia suddenly found herself in the grip of her first round of exams. She struggled and studied and memorized, and returned to Red Apple deeply exhausted, but with the feeling she had acquitted herself nicely, if not quite as successfully as she would have wanted. She could have worried over those exams for weeks, but instead she boxed them up nicely, and turned her attentions on the home folks. How tall Romy was getting! And Manon had gotten so nicely plump. And Blythe hardly had a limp at all, except when he was tired.

Aunt Nan and Una had begun preparations for Cecilia's own wedding, and they showed off their choices for her dress and veil and trousseau. Cecilia had an uneasy feeling about those things, and a weird detachment from the planning process. She was only too happy to let Aunt Nan and Mother decide everything. Why? Shouldn't she want to do it all herself, like Joy? The wedding Blythe had wanted for spring had been pushed back to July, and as the days crept closer, Cecilia began to feel a wild sense of panic. She felt like one of the laboratory rats, scrabbling at the edges of her cage. Well—it was only nerves. Didn't every bride feel this way?

She spent a full week at Ingleside, sleeping over, and taking nice long walks with Grandmother and Grandfather. All the Inglesidians were glad to have her and coddled and babied her atrociously, and Cecilia felt like she had been removed from the world and taken to a magical, fairy place like Tir na nOg, where time stopped or stood still. Surely the outside world had ceased to exist—all the plans and ploddings of daily life? She occasionally caught Grandmother looking at her with worry, and once when the phone rang Aunt Faith scrambled for it, before Cecilia could get there, which was odd. But all in all: it was a delicious string of days.

They had a little party the night Merry came home from Redmond, and Nancy from Queens. Cecilia looked at her grownup cousin with awe, and her little-girl cousin with surprise. Nancy was a tall, slim girl of fifteen, with ruddy hair and golden-brown eyes. She rather looked as if _she_ should have been called 'Merry,' she was so smiley and gay. But when she saw Cecilia, her eyes clouded over and her smile turned sympathetic.

"Dear Cis," she said, holding her cousin's hands gently, "How brave and smiling you are! I wouldn't have expected it—wasn't Marshall Douglas a good friend of yours?"

"Marshall _is_ a good friend of mine," said Cecilia confusedly. "And why shouldn't I smile, Nance?"

Nancy's eyes grew large and frightened as she realized. She looked to her parents, grandparents, anxiously. But they were all standing silently stunned and still as if they were watching something in a play. It was Merry who stepped forward and put her arm around Cecilia's shoulders, as if to shield her, or cushion her, from the blow that must fall.

"Marshall Douglas was killed in action in Germany a week ago," she said softly. She came out with it all at once, and Cecilia had the faint thought that she was grateful—and that she should have known. It was what they had all been trying to shield her from. But then the full force of Merry's words fell upon her and she pitched forward—would have fallen—if Grandfather had not caught her. He held her to him, and he stroked her back, which was shaking, but Cecilia was not crying.

"We wanted to tell you," he said, "But we didn't—quite—know how. We wanted you to have a little rest—before you should know."

His little speech was long enough for Cecilia to collect herself. She stood straight and prized herself away from those encircling arms. Marshall, dead? _Marshall_? She must go—go away from these eyes, watching her, pitying her—for what? No—no—she mustn't do that anymore—she mustn't pretend. They were watching her pityingly because they knew what she had only just realized: that she had loved Marshall, loved him, _loved him_. Loved him _that way_, without needing to try. +Cecilia gently put her grandfather's arms away from her, walked blindly across the parlour, through the hall, out the front door into the open world, where she stood, unseeingly. It was very bright. The sun was shining down over the shivering fields. Rainbow Valley was full of the peals of bells rung on the breeze, and the air throbbed with the promise of spring. It was all as it should be, except that Marshall was dead.

Grandmother had told her once that there was a Book of Revelation in everyone's life, and Cecilia supposed that Fate was writing hers, in this moment. She loved Marshall—had always loved him. If she had not been so stupid and foolish she might have been able to tell him. But he was dead, and she had been blind, she had erred, and now she never would get to tell him. And that was the worst of all: because along with the realization of her own love came the knowledge that Marshall had loved her, too. It had not been a school boy's crush, it had been the real thing, and she might have made him so happy if she had loved him back. They might have gloried in it, together. She made her way to Rainbow Valley where she slumped upon the grass, but for the first time that place held no solace for her. Marshall had gone away from her; he who belonged to her as she did—always would—to him. Cecilia thought, bleakly, that nothing in the world seemed of value without him. She wondered at the fact that she was still alive, that her heart went on beating in her chest. Surely it was breaking? Surely it should stop, if he was not here, with her—never would be, again?

Nobody came after her, and she was left to her thoughts for many hours. At sundown, Blythe appeared, and made his way to her with a stricken, white face. Whether he had been summoned by the family to deal with her, or if he had come on his own, Cecilia never knew. She didn't care, either. She clutched at him wildly. But even as she was drawing him near, she knew what she must say to him—and she did not even care that she would hurt him. She only knew that she must be true to Marshall in this last way that she could. She must tell Blythe that she could not marry him. She must tell him that her heart belonged—had always belonged—to a man who could not come and claim it, now.

"I know," Blythe said, before she even had to speak it. "Cecilia, I know. I've always known that you—I've always known." He held her close.

"I—wish—someone—could—have told—me," she said haltingly, biting off each word so that she would not cry. She did not deserve to cry. She had brought this on herself. "I—wish—I hadn't been—so stupid, Blythe."

There was nothing he could say to that, and so they sat together, as night fell. Finally, Blythe took her home, and Cecilia passed a bitter night in her room, which had always seemed like a haven to her, but seemed like a death chamber to her, now. Here she had lain for many nights with that secret knowledge in her heart—even as her foolish brain tried to pass it off as something else. She knelt at her window and stayed there all night, as a series of pictures passed before her. She had danced with Marshall in this old orchard. She had kissed him by that wall. They had sat together under those trees and talked of life, and death, and dreams. He had sat with them on the porch and sang _I'll be seeing you—in all the old familiar places…_

And now she would be seeing him, forever, everywhere she turned—but never in the flesh. Never would she see him coming toward her, with his arms held out, to catch her up, and kiss her.

_I'll be seeing you_

_In every lovely summer's day_

_In everything that's bright and gay_

_I'll always think of you that way_

_I'll find you, in the morning sun, _

_And when the night is new…_

_I'll be looking at the moon, _

_But I'll be seeing you_.

She fell asleep, there, at the window. Her last thought as her eyes closed was that the stars seemed very cold and cruel and far away.

When she woke again, it was pearly dawn, and Cecilia had the feeling she had been asleep for some time. Maybe days—maybe years? But no—there was the calendar on her wall. It was the morning of 7 May—only a few hours had elapsed since her world had been turned on its end. She looked out with weary eyes over the world. She could see down the lane, to the road—she watched as a figure turned at the gate and started down, toward the house. Dressed in white—Cecilia rose and knew the spectre for who she was. It was Nellie Douglas, and she was running—running, with her skirt flying out behind her—not her skirt—her night-dress. Cecilia stood on shaky legs and clambered down the stairs, and into the yard.

She and Nellie met in the drive-way, clinging to each other. Nellie could not speak, from her exertion. "Mother got—a telegram—an hour ago. It was—a mistake—a mix-up. Somebody named _Douglas Marshall_, from Harbor Head—not our Marshall—not him. He is alive, Cecilia! Marshall—is—_alive_."

The tears that had not come through that long night streamed unchecked down Cecilia's face. She gripped Nellie tight as she could, and they wept and laughed together.

"I don't even care right now that I'm grateful for someone else's tragedy," Cecilia said, her face radiant with joy. "I'll be so guilty over it, later—but just now I'm going to be cruel and horrible and _glad_—so glad. Nellie, I _love_ him! I love _him_."

"Well, of course you do," said Nellie, as though it were established fact. "That's why I came to tell you first of all. Cecilia—I didn't stop running from the time Ma hung up the phone. She sat right down and wept when she heard—the first time I'd ever seen Ma cry—ever. Oh, I feel like Lazarus, who was dead, and risen up. And now I should get back—but I _had_ to tell you—in person, darling."

Long after Nellie was gone Cecilia stood out there, under the trees, as the sun pulled itself up over the edge of the world. Just last night she had thought that _living_ had gone out of her life, forever—and now the green lawn was like a carpet unfurled before her. Cecilia had a perfect picture of her life, from that moment on—she would laugh, and love, and sing, and dream—and she would do it with Marshall, if he still wanted her. And even if he did not: she would do these things, just knowing that he was alive, and well, and doing them, too.

Last night she had thought her life a Book of Revelation. And now she saw that it was the Creation Story, instead. God had given her light, out of darkness. He had reached his hand down, and touched her—and given her new life. She would keep this day, 7 May 1945, holy to this feeling, forever. Even the news that came later in the day, that the Germans had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, could not supersede the joy Cecilia felt on that morning over her true love's presence in the world. Even the end of a war was nothing to her, compared with the fact that he was alive and well. 

______________________________

A/N: Places marked with + are taken and paraphrased from Anne of the Island, by LM Montgomery, simply for the artistic decision that I wanted Cecilia's romance to mirror that of her grandparents.


	36. All the Time in the World

Cecilia was very grateful that everybody should take the news of her and Blythe's broken engagement so easily. They might not have, but Cecilia herself was so happy that they could not help being happy _for_ her. And Blythe did not seem so broken-hearted as he might have been. He had many different places to turn to for support, not the least of which was a pretty, blonde-headed girl with a face like a rose. His friendship with Manon grew and strengthened, and people grew almost as used to seeing them together as they had once grown used to seeing Blythe and Cecilia walking side-by-side. It was a little bittersweet to Cecilia, to know that someone else had superseded her in Blythe's affections—but if Blythe could bear that Marshall had superseded _him_, she could be gracious about it, too.

Through the summer, and the fall, when she was back in school, Cecilia wrote to Marshall every day. She was beginning to realize that their friendship had faded a little, from her actions and her lack of attention to it, and must be rebuilt slowly, and carefully, before they could be lovers. And so she was glad, a little for the distance between them. They could get to know each other again, as friends—and then, when he came home… But their letters were not always only friendly epistles, and Cecilia learned the art of writing love letters that sprang from the heart, at long last.

_I'm happy you're in school, Cee, _Marshall wrote to her, once, _And much as I resent Blythe for having you when I couldn't, I'm glad he arranged it so you'd be firmly established there by the time I came home. Because I might be tempted to act a little like him, and not have you go, if it was up to me. Because when I get you in my arms, again, girl—well, I won't want to let you go. I have a minute here, and my pen nib isn't rusty—like in those letters your grandmother wrote your grandfather you wrote me about—and so I'm going to sit right down and list for you all the reasons _why_ I'd want to keep you with me, and what I could find for us to do together if you weren't in school. _

Cecilia grinned, when she read that, and wrote back:

_But I won't be in school all the time, and so I'm sure we'll have a little time to try some of those things out. Number four on your list, Marshall—I'm looking forward to it already. I really don't have any time—I've pages and pages of anatomy to read for class tomorrow—but I found your list so inspiring I think I'll make up one of my own: Things About You I Adore. It's going to be a long one, you know, so settle back and get comfortable, won't you?_

At mid-semester break Cecilia came home to find the place whipped into a frenzy over Joy's fast-approaching nuptials to Jacob Penhallow. They were having a Christmastime wedding, and Joy in her white finery looked like a Snow Queen. Since silk was scarce, her dress was made of a parachute that Gilbert had sent, since he couldn't be there, himself. Cecilia was to be bridesmaid, and she wore her own dress of crimson as she stood up beside Joy in front of the mantle at the Lowbridge manse. It was a quiet little wedding, and Joy had to bend nearly in half to kiss her groom in his chair as her father pronounced them husband and wife, but when she pulled away Jacob's face was shining with gladness, and Cecilia's own heart felt full to bursting, she was so happy for them both.

It was at Joy's wedding that Blythe and Manon were engaged. Some people said it happened too quickly—but Cecilia didn't think so, at all. Things had never really been right between her and Blythe, and so she didn't think his previous engagement should count against him. And Manon had been mourning Owen for a year and a half—three times as long as they had been married. Cecilia knew that a part of her would go on mourning him for ever; that what she had with Blythe could never replace that first, lost love. When Manon came to tell her the news, Cecilia congratulated her sincerely, and with earnest good wishes for her future.

"I never thought of it before, Manon, but now that I do, it seems that you and Blythe fit perfectly. You keep him from being selfish—he dotes on you. And you're dreamy enough for him. Oh, let's live close together, can't we? And our children can grow up being friends, and we can run over and see each other every day. Oh, Manon, Manon—I'm so happy you've found love again."

"I do love him," Manon admitted. "At first I thought I couldn't because it isn't anything like what I had with Owen. It's—softer, somehow. But it is love. I was talking to your grandmother, and _she_ said there are as many different types of loving as there are people. Mine and Blythe's way is softer—but it is not any less sweet, for that."

"How wise we are," Cecilia smiled, fitting her arm around Manon's waist. "We've grown up a lot this last year, haven't we?"

"Not too much, though," said Manon, and reached down and scooped up a handful of snow, which she lobbed gently at her friend. Cecilia cried out, and, grinning, chased after her—and those two, _wise_ old souls engaged in a snowball fight that would have put even the most rowdy child to shame.

________________________________

One by one, their boys who had gone away from the Glen started to return home. There were some who never would, and they were missed, but for the first time in over five years, the Glen had virtually no goodbyes—and enough reunions to satisfy them.

Gil and Walt came home together, in June. The moment they stepped off the train, the Ingleside crowd engulfed them, kissing them, embracing them. Aunt Faith threw her hat in the air and yelled, "Hurrah!" like a man. Uncle Jem had tears in his eyes—Aunt Nan waved a little flag wildly—Aunt Rilla touched her boy's face and looked into it, hard, to see if it had changed. She expected a change, and indeed, there were different lines on Gilly's sun-worn face—but he was still her little baby of the House of Dreams. And Walt was being nearly torn to pieces by his sisters.

Gilbert did two things then—one thing that made them laugh, and one that made them want to cry. First he took Catharine Douglas in his arms and bent her over backwards and kissed her. In front of the whole crowd, which whooped and hollered! But Cathy did not seem to mind—she even threw her arms about him shamelessly. When Gilly finally let her go he dropped to his knee and kissed the red soil under his feet—they all felt tears in their eyes—but Gil would not have it! He sprang up and caught his love in his arms again.

Walter did not meet Nellie in the same way—he merely went to her, and took off his hat—and stared. Had she been so beautiful before, and he had never noticed? He felt silly and ashamed then—had he been too blinded by a bright, marigold beauty to notice the slender, pale lily before him? But Nellie held out her fine, alabaster arms to him in greeting and smiled—all the years of bitterness and unrequited love were forgotten—because her love was here _now_. Walter took her small hands in his own and asked, in a low voice, a question that would have made Mary Vance whoop and holler herself.

"There's to be a double wedding in August," Cecilia wrote happily in her journal. "We are all so _glad—_Gil and Cathy, whom we knew would end up together, and Nellie and Walt, whom we could only hope for—why, it all seems too perfect! Nellie has come into herself in a way that she never could before, and she just glows with pleasure. And Mary Vance is already stockpiling the slim ration of sugar we are allowed now—just so we'll have enough then. 'This is a wedding that's going to _be_ a wedding,' she keeps saying. 'If only Cornelia was here—and—and Kitty Alec wasn't.'

"Mrs. Douglas does seem to be the sort that won't die—she is nearly a hundred and still giving everyone who crosses her path a tongue-lashing. The other day she deprecatingly called me a 'mod'—and I couldn't help laughing, which made her ever so mad. But oh, me fine Kitty, I'm over the moon now that our boys are home—and safe—and sound of body and mind.

"All of these weddings are sure to ruin me, even if Mrs. Douglas can't! It puts me in mind of the old adage, "three times a bridesmaid, never a bride." Even _if_ Cathy and Gil and Nellie and Walt's nuptials count only as one wedding, I'm still doomed. I was Joy's bridesmaid, and I will be Nellie's in August, and then Manon's in October. But I am not _too_ worried—although I haven't had a letter from Marshall in a long time—over a week. But that _is_ a long time to us, since we right each other so frequently. Can he have forgotten me? Can his feelings have changed?

"Even little cousin Hannah Ford has a beau! Blair King is dashingly handsome and we girls are all pea green with envy—even those of us who are happily engaged. It is so—strange—to me. Hannah is only a year older than Susan would have been. It is strange to think of Susan as a girl old enough to have beaus. What would she have looked like, I wonder? Would she hate her red hair, like grandmother did as a girl, or love it, like Merry does hers? Would she be taller than me? Thinner? Would she prefer going to the cinema or rambling 'long the shore? What would make her laugh? Or cry?

"I know one thing for sure: we would love each other as much as we ever did. I've been telling Romy all about Susan, lately, and it does my heart good to see her talking so familiarly of the sister she never knew. Or did she?

"There are two other little occurrences that I should set down here, for posterity. The first is that I had on good authority from Mary Vance that Marshall was promoted to Captain before he was decommissioned, and also that he has applied to Redmond Business College for the fall. So he should be coming home any day, now, and I'll be so glad to see him—but why hasn't he written me this news himself? Nevermind—I know better than to put too much stock in the mail, and I shall move on to the second thing, to distract me, and I have a nice segue, for here comes Blythe up the lane—I can hear him whistling—he is bringing his book of poems to show me. Only a little paper volume—but put out by a press in Boston!—I am so proud of him and I told him so, and our old friendship flared up again when I did. So all is—almost—perfectly well in my world. There would be just one other thing to make it better."

Cecilia laid down her pen and peered dreamily out of her window at the early summer day—the apple trees were all a-blossom—at the clean, bright pastures she had mowed a bit earlier—at the figure coming up the lane—at the two figures coming up the lane. One was most decidedly Blythe—he walked with a limp—but one was—one was—one _was_! She must fly!

Marshall caught her as she met him in the orchard.

"You pretty thing!" he said triumphantly. "You ran to meet me—it was just how I imagined it would be. But I saw Blythe pass me a way back—are you running to him, instead, and I'm second again?"

"Blythe can wait!" Cecilia said, trembling with joy. She felt as if she would dissolve into molecules.

"Say that again!" Marshall's green eyes snapped. "For I've waited long enough to hear it."

"Blythe can wait—he can wait forever. Blythe isn't—has never been—what you are to me, Marshall. I was just too silly to know it."

They kissed then—that old promise made good. And it was right—so right. They kissed again—really, this old, ghostly orchard with its tangy scent was a glorious trysting spot!

"It feels like no time at all has passed since I last saw you," said Cecilia, touching his face. "You look just the same—only handsomer—and perhaps a bit careworn—there is a line between your eyes that wasn't there before and something in your eyes themselves—but you're my Marshall all the same. I suppose you wanted to surprise me by not writing you were coming home. And you have—though I did worry you—you—"

"That I'd forgotten about you?" asked Marshall, twining his fingers in Cecilia's. "I couldn't darling. The waves on the boat sounded, 'Cecilia,' the train wheels turned, 'Cecilia—Cecilia'—my heart beats 'Cecilia.' I only didn't write because I was too busy planning out what I'd say when I saw you—this question I would ask you, and how I'd ask it…"

Marshall bent his head close, and what he said was not for us to hear. The only thing one could have heard, standing, in the bright, breezy orchard of Red Apple Farm, was the toss of the bold apple-tree branches and the sound of a girl's low, loving, happy laughter.

It carried on the wind—the folks up at the farm heard it. Una heard it and knew what it meant—and tears sprang to her eyes even while a smile came to her lips. Shirley heard it and felt relieved—Marshall was the man for his girl, in the end, and he was glad. Little Romy heard it and laughed herself—what a silvery, pealing laugh she had!

Blythe, who was waiting by the spruce grove, heard it, too—and decided he'd better leave his book with Aunt Una and come back some other time. And he would—for they had all the time in the world.

**THE END**


End file.
